THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


AS    OTHERS   SEE   US 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA  •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

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MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 


A   STUDY  OF   PROGRESS    IN   THE 
UNITED   STATES 


BY 
JOHN   GRAHAM    BROOKS 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  SOCIAL  UNREST" 


ff orfe 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1909 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1908, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1908.     Reprinted 
ebruarv.  1000. 


February, 1909 


Xortaoofi 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  <k  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


E 
168 


DEDICATED 

TO   THE 

RIGHT    HON.   JAMES    BRYCE 


818579 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    THE  PROBLEM  OPENED i 

II.  CONCERNING  OUR  CRITICS      .        .        .        .21 

III.  WHO  is  THE  AMERICAN  ?       .        .        .        -39 

IV.  OUR  TALENT  FOR  BRAGGING.        ...        .60 
V.  SOME  OTHER  PECULIARITIES  ....      77 

VI.  AMERICAN  SENSITIVENESS       ....      99 

VII.  THE  MOTHER  COUNTRY  AS  CRITIC        .        .116 

VIII.  CHANGE  OF  TONE  IN  FOREIGN  CRITICISM      .     129 

IX.    HIGHER  CRITICISM 151 

X.    OUR  FRENCH  VISITORS 173 

XI.  DEMOCRACY  AND  MANNERS    .        .        .        .     191 

XII.  OUR  MONOPOLY  OF  WIT        ....    213 

XIII.  OUR  GREATEST  CRITIC 231 

XIV.  A  PHILOSOPHER  AS  MEDIATOR      .        .        .    253 
XV.    A  SOCIALIST  CRITIC 274 

XVI.    SIGNS  OF  PROGRESS 294 

XVII.  SIGNS  OF  PROGRESS — Continued  .        .        .    322 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 347 

INDEX 355 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

HARRIET  MARTINEAU  (SKETCH)          ....      14 
MRS.  TROLLOPE  .       -.        ...      .        .        .        .        .62 

A  SCENE  AT  A  CAMPMEETING 80 

CAPTAIN  BASIL  HALL 96 

CAPTAIN  MARRYAT      .        .        .        .        .        .        .112 

SIR  CHARLES  LYELL    .        .        .        ...        .132 

CHARLES  DICKENS       .        .        .        .        .        .        .    148 

ALEXIS  DE  TOCQUEVILLE    .        ......    152 

HARRIET  MARTINEAU  .        ...        .        ,    '    .    194 

JAMES  BRYCE 232 

H.  G.  WELLS .274 

MAX  O'RELL  (M.  BLOUET)        .        .        .        .        .    296 
FIRST  TRIP  OF  FULTON'S  STEAMBOAT  TO  ALBANY     .    318 


AS  OTHERS  SEE  US:  A 
STUDY  OF  PROGRESS 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   PROBLEM  OPENED 

IT  was  an  accident,  but  I  shall  always  think  of 
it  as  a  happy  one.  In  1893,  just  starting  upon  a 
long  lecture  tour  through  the  Middle  West,  I  fell 
upon  three  volumes  of  Criticisms  on  our  American 
Life  and  Institutions,  "Travels  in  North  America." 
They  were  written  in  1827-1828  by  a  distinguished 
naval  officer,  Captain  Basil  Hall.  They  were  in 
their  time  a  classic  in  this  literature  of  foreign 
observation.  The  mother  of  our  veteran  man  of 
letters,  T.  W.  Higginson,  left  an  account  of  this 
traveller,  who  was  introduced  to  her  home  by  the 
historian  Jared  Sparks. 

Later  we  hear  that  "everybody"  is  reading 
Captain  Hall's  book,  losing  their  temper  and  wonder- 
ing how  he  could  accept  so  much  hospitality  and 
then  go  home  to  write  three  volumes  of  "abuse, 
stupidities,  and  slanders."  I  cannot  imagine  an 
American  to-day  reading  those  books  with  one  flutter 
of  fretful  emotion.  He  was  "honest  as  a  Saxon" 


2  AS   OTHERS   SEE    US 

and  extremely  painstaking.  With  hardy  conscien- 
tiousness, he  travelled  several  thousand  miles,  really 
seeing  most  phases  of  life  then  observable  in  the 
United  States. 

Quite  two  generations  had  passed  between  the 
publication  and  my  reading  of  these  books.  As  the 
author's  letters  of  introduction  opened  all  doors  to 
him,  he  saw  much  of  what  was  best  in  the  home 
life  of  those  days.  An  inveterate  note-taker,  he 
made  records  of  his  observations  upon  our  institu- 
tions, religion,  manners,  habits,  politics,  business, 
and  modes  of  life.  Like  most  of  the  earlier  English 
visitors,  he  brought  with  him  his  own  national 
standard  of  well-doing,  and  to  this  test  of  propriety 
he  submitted  every  unhappy  variation  in  our  Ameri- 
can behavior.  By  so  far  as  it  was  not  English,  by 
so  far  was  it  an  object  for  correction  and  disapproval. 
He  visited  Congress,  where  he  was  surprised  and 
offended  because  objectionable  orators  were  not 
forthwith  coughed  or  groaned  into  silence,  as  was 
the  effective  custom  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

He  says :  — 

"I  was  much  struck  with  one  peculiarity  in  these  debates, 
—  the  absence  of  all  cheering,  coughing,  or  other  methods 
by  which,  in  England,  public  bodies  take  the  liberty  of  com- 
municating to  the  person  who  is  speaking  a  full  knowledge 
of  the  impression  made  upon  the  audience.  In  America 
there  is  nothing  to  supply  the  endless  variety  of  tones  in  which 
the  word  'Hear!  Hear!'  is  uttered  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, by  which  the  member  who  is  speaking  ascertains,  with 
the  utmost  distinctness  and  precision,  whether  the  House  are 


THE   PROBLEM    OPENED  3 

pleased  or  displeased  with  him,  bored  or  delighted,  or  whether 
what  he  says  is  granted  or  denied —  lessons  eminently  useful 
in  the  conduct  of  public  debate." 

In  our  own  day  we  are  not  without  agitation  over 
spelling  reform,  but  where  among  conservatives 
would  one  find  a  match  for  this  doughty  objector  ? 
The  English  Dictionary  had  to  him  a  final  sacred- 
ness  which  makes  the  slightest  deviation  an  affront  to 
the  language.  When  he  discovers  a  few  new  words, 
he  cannot  rest  until  he  sets  us  right. 

"Surely,"  he  says,  "such  innovations  are  to  be 
deprecated." 

"I  don't  know  that,"  replies  the  American.  "If 
a  word  becomes  universally  current  in  America 
where  English  is  spoken,  why  should  it  not  take  its 
station  in  the  language?" 

"Because,"  answers  our  critic,  "there  are  words 
enough  in  our  language  already  and  it  only  confuses 
matters  and  hurts  the  cause  of  letters  to  introduce 
such  words."  1 

Another  Englishman  in  our  own  day,  far  better 
instructed  in  linguistic  matters  than  Basil  Hall, 
shows  us  the  change  in  literary  tolerance.  The 
latter  declared  his  countrymen  thought  of  the  Ameri- 
cans as  having  received  from  England  every  good 
they  possessed.  It  was  rank  impiety  to  take  the 
slightest  liberty  with  this  inheritance. 

He  writes :  — 

"England  taught  the  Americans  all  they  have  of  speech 
1  Vol.  I,  p.  37. 


4  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

or  thought,  hitherto.  What  thoughts  they  have  not  learned 
from  England  are  foolish  thoughts;  what  words  they  have 
not  learned  from  England,  unseemly  words;  the  vile  among 
them  not  being  able  even  to  be  humorous  parrots,  but  only 
obscene  mocking-birds." 

In  the  judgment  of  William  Archer  we  now  see 
how  far  we  have  left  behind  us  this  petty  provin- 
cialism. 

He  writes :  — 

"New  words  are  begotten  by  new  conditions  of  life;  and 
as  American  life  is  far  more  fertile  of  new  conditions  than 
ours,  the  tendency  towards  neologism  cannot  but  be  stronger 
in  America  than  in  England.  America  has  enormously  en- 
riched the  language,  not  only  with  new  words,  but  (since  the 
American  mind  is,  on  the  whole,  quicker  and  wittier  than  the 
English)  with  apt  and  luminous  colloquial  metaphors."  l 

There  is  scarcely  a  trait  of  our  moral,  intellectual, 
and  institutional  life  that  we  cannot  in  the  same 
way  test  by  changes  in  the  opinions  of  these  critics 
who  sit  in  judgment  upon  us. 

Captain  Hall  came  when  the  aristocratic  traditions 
of  property  and  religion  were  rapidly  yielding  to 
democratic  forms  and  standards.  This  filled  him 
with  alarm.  Every  American  aristocrat,  together 
with  all  the  lackey  imitators  of  aristocracy,  assured 
him  that  these  democratic  substitutes  were  the 
handwriting  on  the  wall.  The  sun  was  about  to 
set  on  the  "great  experiment." 

This  is  the  kind  of  alarm-signal  which  Hall  selects 
to  prove  our  on-coming  calamities  that  are  of  most 

1  "America  To-day";  William  Archer,  Scribner's,  1899,  p.  218. 


THE    PROBLEM    OPENED  5 

interest  to  us.  He  was  sure,  for  instance,  that 
both  our  manners  and  morals  are  in  peril  because 
we  have  no  class  among  us  to  spend  money  with 
grace  and  distinction.  He  counted  this  among  the 
highest  of  arts,  "more  difficult  than  the  art  of 
making  it,"  —  "the  art  of  spending  it  like  a  gentle- 
man." If  we  but  had  among  us  these  models, 
free  from  the  stain  of  making  their  own  living,  they 
could  so  spend  income  which  others  had  earned  as 
to  set  before  the  common  people  worthy  and  inspir- 
ing ideals.  This  "art  of  spending  like  a  gentleman" 
may  be  taught  like  other  arts.  The  Captain  is 
confident  that  plain  and  honest  folk  in  the  United 
States  would  respond,  if  they  could  have  in  familiar 
circulation  a  goodly  number  of  these  models.  Then 
they  would  show  the  most  vulgar  how  to  do  it. 
Especially  if  one  disburses  unearned  moneys,  it 
may  be  done  with  a  courtly  abandon  that  cannot 
fail  to  impress  the  most  stolid  among  the  masses. 
He  feels  sure,  too,  that  these  artistic  largesses  would 
strengthen  every  bond  of  society  as  well  as  refine  it. 
It  would  deepen  the  sense  among  the  people  that 
they  were  in  the  presence  of  superior  persons,  and 
this  could  not  fail  to  quicken  gratitude  and  sympathy 
even  among  the  most  lowly. 

If  there  are  any  misgivings  about  this,  you  have 
only  to  look  to  the  Mother  Country,  where  a  "  per- 
manent money-spending"  gentry  willingly  serve  as 
models  with  results  so  conspicuous  as  to  silence  all 
doubts. 


6  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

That  we  should  have  given  up  flogging  in  the 
army,  struck  him  likewise  as  a  peril  to  the  Republic. 
From  careful  inquiries,  he  finds  what  he  feared  — 
that  discipline  is  declining  and,  what  one  would  not 
have  expected,  "  the  soldiers  becoming  discontented." 
In  spite  of  their  writhings  under  the  lash,  they 
really  understood  its  beneficence.  It  was  because 
no  profane  hand  had  touched  the  custom  of  flogging 
in  the  navy  —  thereby  introducing  discontent  among 
the  flogged  sailors  —  that  the  superiority  of  the  navy 
becomes  clear  to  him. 

It  was  a  real  perplexity  to  him  that  so  many  of 
the  common  people  behaved  as  if  they  were  not  infe- 
riors. It  was  a  kind  of  bluff  that  he  had  not  be- 
fore encountered. 

An  observed  difference  of  manner  in  serving  at 
table  calls  out  this  comment :  — 

"At  a  place  called  the  Little  Falls,  where  we  stopped  to 
dine,  a  pretty  young  woman,  apparently  the  daughter  of  the 
master  of  the  house,  also  served  us  at  dinner.  When  her 
immediate  attendance  was  not  required,  she  sat  down  in  the 
window  with  her  work,  exactly  as  if  she  had  been  one  of  the 
party.  There  was  nothing,  however,  in  the  least  degree  for- 
ward or  impudent  in  this ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  done  quietly 
and  respectfully,  though  with  perfect  ease,  and  without  the 
least  consciousness  of  its  being  contrary  to  European  man- 
ners." ' 

That  we  should  think  of  discarding  primogeniture 
and  allow  the  property  to  pass  equally  to  all  the 
children  is  another  amazing  blunder.  How  can  a 

1  Vol.  II,  p.  3. 


THE    PROBLEM    OPENED  '  7 

society  survive  in  "  the  absence  of  all  classification 
of  ranks"?  For  the  absence  of  ranks  "prevents 
people  becoming  sufficiently  well  acquainted  with 
one  another  to  justify  such  intimacies." 

The  vast  landed  estates  of  the  Livingstons  on 
the  Hudson  were  actually  in  danger  of  passing  into 
the  hands  of  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry.  Where  half  a 
dozen  landlords  once  lived,  he  finds  to  his  dismay 
"as  many  hundreds  may  now  be  counted."  l  The 
fulness  of  the  calamity  can  only  be  seen  when  its 
consequences  are  considered.  It  will  not  leave  an 
income  on  which  one  may  live  like  a  gentleman 
without  work. 

In  his  anxiety  for  our  welfare,  he  says :  — 

"The  property  of  the  parent,  therefore,  is  generally  divided 
equally  amongst  the  children.  This  division,  as  may  be  sup- 
posed, seldom  gives  to  each  sufficient  means  to  enable  him  to 
live  independently  of  business;  and  consequently,  the  same 
course  of  money-making  habits  which  belonged  to  the  parents 
necessarily  descends  to  the  son.  Or,  supposing  there  be  only 
one  who  succeeds  to  the  fortune,  in  what  way  is  he  to  spend 
it?  Where,  when,  and  with  whom?  How  is  he  to  find  com- 
panionship? How  expect  sympathy  from  the  great  mass  of 
all  the  people  he  mixes  amongst,  whose  habits  and  tastes  lie 
in  totally  different  directions?"  l 

Captain  Hall  was  here  several  years  before  Eng- 
land had  done  away  with  those  rotten  boroughs 
which  enabled  a  few  landlords  to  make  all  the  laws 
of  the  land.  Yet  he  was  thrown  into  much  heat  by 
the  suggestion  that  the  House  of  Commons  needed 
1  Vol.  I,  p.  307. 


8  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

reforming  in  this  respect.  "I  do  not  think,"  he 
says,  "we  could  possibly  make  it  better."  *  Bir- 
mingham at  that  time  could  send  no  representative 
to  Parliament;  yet  this  city,  says  Mr.  Hall,  "is  in 
practice  one  of  the  best  represented  cities  in  the 
Empire." 

So,  too,  our  separation  of  Church  and  State  is  like 
throwing  away  "the  fly-wheel  in  a  great  engine." 
Yet  this  intelligent  gentleman  had  been  in  all  parts 
of  the  world  and  was  an  honored  guest  and  friend 
in  the  family  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  as  we  learn  in 
Lockhart's  Life. 

The  extracts  given  are  not  wholly  just  to  him,  as 
there  is  much  good-will,  innumerable  shrewd  com- 
ments on  our  manners  and  customs;  and  through- 
out, a  certain  obdurate  purpose  to  learn  the  facts. 
In  his  final  comments  he  even  shows  surprising 
humility.  He  discovers  that  his  notes  contain  the 
most  bewildering  contradictions  which  reflect  upon 
the  finality  of  his  observations.  He  adds :  — 

"For  my  part,  I  acknowledge  fairly,  that  after  some  ex- 
perience in  the  embarrassing  science  of  travelling,  I  have  often 
been  so  much  out  of  humor  with  the  people  amongst  whom 
I  was  wandering  that  I  have  most  perversely  derived  pleasure 
from  meeting  things  to  find  fault  with ;  and  very  often,  I  am 
ashamed  to  say,  when  asking  for  information,  have  detected 
that  my  wish  was  rather  to  prove  my  original  and  prejudiced 
conceptions  right,  than  to  discover  that  I  had  previously  done 
the  people  injustice."  2 

His  serenity  during  the  trip  was  often  ruffled  by 
1  Vol.  i,  p.  49.  l  Vol.  i,  p.  167. 


THE    PROBLEM    OPENED  9 

impudent  inclination  on  the  part  of  many  Americans 
to  disregard  and  even,  in  extreme  cases,  scoff  at  his 
good  counsels.  And  thus,  with  much  kindly  feeling, 
we  part  from  this  guest  and  general  adviser. 

It  was  rather  his  strictures  upon  our  minor  vices, 
if  they  are  minor:  our  much  spitting,  our  unlovely 
voices,  familiarities,  curiosities,  incessant  national 
bragging,  and  undue  sensitiveness  to  criticism  that 
made  me  grateful  to  the  author  during  those  three 
months'  journeying  fifteen  years  ago.  Reading 
his  pages  by  bits  in  trains  and  in  hotels,  I  was 
quickened  to  ask,  what  of  these  criticisms  are  still 
true  about  us?  How  far  are  we  still  the  people 
described  in  those  volumes?  I  had  written  four 
closely  summarized  pages  of  individual  and  insti- 
tutional characteristics  which  Captain  Hall  thought 
he  saw  in  us.  With  this  list  in  hand,  it  was  easier 
to  note  at  least  some  great  changes  both  in  institu- 
tions and  in  our  conduct  as  citizens  and  neighbors. 
With  these  observations  for  a  background,  one  could 
take  measurements.  For  example,  like  several 
other  visitors  in  those  days,  Hall  was  struck  re- 
peatedly by  the  frigid  isolation  of  men  and  women 
at  social  gatherings. 

"I  seldom  observed  anything  in  America  but  the  most 
respectful  and  icy  propriety  upon  all  occasions  when  young 
people  of  different  sexes  were  brought  together.  Positively 
I  never  once,  during  the  whole  period  I  was  in  that  country, 
saw  anything  approaching,  within  many  degrees,  to  what 
we  should  call  a  flirtation." 


10  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

Again, 

"The  result  of  all  my  observations  and  inquiries  is,  that 
the  women  do  not  enjoy  that  station  in  society  which  has 
been  allotted  to  them  elsewhere;  and  consequently  much  of 
that  important  and  habitual  influence  which,  from  the  pe- 
culiarity of  their  nature,  they  alone  can  exercise  over  society 
in  more  fortunately  arranged  communities,  seems  to  be  lost." 

All  things  are  working,  he  thinks,  to  give  the  two 
sexes  in  the  United  States  "such  different  classes  of 
occupations,  that  they  seldom  act  together ;  and  this 
naturally  prevents  the  growth  of  that  intimate  com- 
panionship, which  nothing  can  establish  but  the 
habitual  interchange  of  opinions  and  sentiments 
upon  topics  of  common  employment."  1 

Mrs.  Trollope  says  she  was  at  several  balls  "where 
everything  was  on  the  most  liberal  scale  of  expense, 
when  the  gentlemen  sat  down  to  supper  in  one  room, 
while  the  ladies  took  theirs,  standing,  in  another." 

It  was  on  this  journey,  that  I  first  heard  two  univer- 
sity teachers  with  much  experience  in  instructing 
men  and  women  together,  expressing  alarm  at  coedu- 
cation. "It  brings  them,"  said  one,  "far  too  closely 
together,  socially  and  educationally.  The  young 
fellow  sees  the  girl  at  such  close  range  and  so  con- 
stantly, that  she  loses  the  mystery  and  charm  that 
are  her  best  asset."  I  do  not  recall  any  argument 
based  on  the  supposed  lowering  of  educational 
standard  because  of  coeducation.  It  was  rather 

1  "Travels  in  the  United  States,"  Vol.  II,  pp,  150,  153.  See 
also  p.  157. 


THE    PROBLEM    OPENED  II 

that  academic  and  social  intercourse  had  become  too 
fraternal  and  intimate.1 

Here,  then,  is  a  wide  span  between  the  icy  disen- 
gagement of  the  sexes  in  1827  and  the  present  free- 
dom of  fellowship.  If  travellers  in  those  days  are 
to  be  believed,  this  condition  has  further  illustration 
in  the  grotesque  prudery  of  the  women.  To  utter 
aloud  in  their  presence  the  word  shirt  was  an 
open  insult.  Mrs.  Trollope  does  not  state  this  more 
strongly  than  other  writers  when  she  says :  — 

"A  young  German  gentleman  of  perfectly  good  manners, 
once  came  to  me  greatly  chagrined  at  having  offended  one  of 
the  principal  families  in  the  neighborhood,  by  having  pro- 
nounced the  word  corset  before  the  ladies  of  it. 

"I  once  mentioned  to  a  young  lady  that  I  thought  a  picnic 
party  would  be  very  agreeable,  and  that  I  would  propose  it 
to  some  of  our  friends.  She  agreed  that  it  would  be  delight- 
ful, but  she  added,  'I  fear  you  will  not  succeed;  we  are  not 
used  to  such  sort  of  things  here,  and  I  know  it  is  considered 
very  indelicate  for  ladies  and  gentlemen  to  sit  down  together 
on  the  grass.'"  2 

When  Powers's  "Chanting  Cherubs"  were  ex- 
hibited in  Boston,  it  was  necessary  to  drape  their 
loins  with  linen,  and  a  like  treatment  was  accorded 

1  Von  Polenz,  in  a  recent  book  of  admirable  temper,  speaks  of 
the  freedom  of  intercourse  in  its  beautiful  expression  between  the 
sexes.     "Das  Land  der  Zukunft,"  p.  231. 

In  1904  a  Frenchman  writes,  "I  have  nowhere  seen  a  freer, 
happier,  or  more  wholesome  mingling  of  the  sexes  than  in  the 
United  States." 

2  Vol.  I,  p.  192. 


12  AS   OTHERS    SEE    US 

to  an  orang-outang  which  visited  the  city  about  the 
same  time.1 

It  is  a  far  journey  from  all  this,  to  days  when  thou- 
sands of  well-bred  girls  hasten,  without  parental  resist- 
ance, to  listen  to  plays  of  Bernard  Shaw  and  to  others 
freer  still.  Whether  the  change  is  approved  or  de- 
plored, it  is  very  great,  and  our  critics  furnish  the 
personal  perspective  through  which  the  change  may 
be  seen. 

Returning  home,  I  at  once  reread  Dickens's 
"American  Notes"  and  the  parts  of  "Martin 
Chuzzlewit"  which  refer  to  the  United  States.  I 
had  forgotten  the  lively  resentment  roused  by  their 
first  reading.  What  had  happened  that  thirty  years 
later  the  smart  of  his  grossest  caricatures  had  utterly 
disappeared?  It  was  partly  because  one  recog- 
nized so  much  truth  in  the  picture.  There  were 
characteristics  in  our  public  and  private  life  which 
richly  deserved  the  kind  of  punishment  which  this 
great  humorist  administered.  It  is  now  plain  his- 
tory that  we  had  many  a  promoter's  scheme  which 
the  bunco-game  of  land  sales  in  "Martin  Chuzzle- 
wit" scarcely  exaggerates.  Philadelphians  wanted 
to  put  Dickens  in  a  cell  for  telling  such  lies  about 
their  model  prison.  We  now  know  that  he  told  the 
truth;  that  he  did  a  public  service  in  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  essential  barbarity  of  that  boasted  prison 
method.  When  he  wrote  "those  benevolent  gentle- 

1  McMaster's  "History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States," 
Vol.  VI,  p.  96. 


THE    PROBLEM    OPENED  13 

men  who  carry  it  into  execution,  do  not  know  what 
they  are  doing,"  he  was  both  seer  and  prophet. 
We  all  learned,  too,  that  Dickens,  like  Matthew 
Arnold,  was  impartial.  He  was  as  pitiless  in  his 
caricature  of  evils  in  England  as  of  those  in  the 
United  States.  Twenty-five  years  later  (1868),  he 
came  again  to  this  country,  noting  the  "gigantic 
changes"  —  changes  in  the  graces  and  amenities 
of  life,  changes  in  the  Press,  etc.,  to  which  he  adds, 
"I  have  been  received  with  unsurpassable  politeness, 
delicacy,  sweet  temper,  hospitality,  consideration." 
The  sting  has  gone  from  all  his  gibes,  because  we 
are  far  enough  away  to  measure  both  the  critic  and 
the  objects  criticised. 

For  my  journey  on  the  following  year,  I  took 
Harriet  Martineau's  "Society  in  America,"  Hamil- 
ton's "Men  and  Manners  in  America,"  Mrs.  Trol- 
lope's  "Domestic  Manners  of  the  Americans." 
The  latter  book  I  had  long  before  read,  but,  as  with 
Dickens,  the  new  reading  was  merely  good  fun. 
To  have  as  travelling  companion  a  commentator 
as  penetrating  as  Harriet  Martineau,  had  the  quick 
reward  of  added  interest  in  one's  fellow-passengers 
on  the  train  and  in  the  happenings  at  hotels  and 
stations.  Probably  no  one,  except  Mr.  Bryce, 
read  more  carefully  in  preparation  for  the  trip  than 
this  distinguished  woman.  There  is  no  phase  of 
our  life  that  her  two  volumes  leave  untouched.  If 
/we  add  to  these,  the  portions  of  her  Autobiography 
devoted  to  us,  we  have  a  cyclopaedia  of  critical 


14  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

observation  on  our  institutions,  religion,  morals, 
politics,  manners,  voices,  education,  industrial  and 
economic  life,  which  is  invaluable,  if  our  purpose  is 
to  measure  the  ups  and  downs,  the  tendencies, 
changes,  and  progress  in  this  country. 

These  authors  finished,  the  interest  excited  proved 
so  keen  that  for  several  years  I  rarely  took  a  journey 
without  putting  into  my  bag  one  or  more  of  these 
reviewers  of  American  life  and  conduct.  This  has 
resulted  in  a  collection  of  some  seventy-five  volumes, 
the  titles  of  which  are  given  at  the  end  of  these 
chapters. 

It  soon  appeared  that  writers  earlier  than  the 
Revolution  (1776)  dealt  with  a  world  so  removed 
from  our  own,  that  the  kind  of  comparison  here 
aimed  at  was  too  difficult.  Earlier  than  Brissot  and 
Crevecoeur,  I  therefore  do  not  go. 

The  list  is  extremely  incomplete,  even  incoherent, 
and  every  reader  will  recall  books  of  which  no  men- 
tion is  made,  as  well  as  some  books  that  are  far 
better  than  many  here  used. 

The  list  does,  nevertheless,  include  most  of  those 
whose  opinions  we  care  to  consider.  To  search  out 
all  the  critics  was  no  part  of  my  purpose,  neither  to 
report  all  the  opinions  of  those  selected.  The  books 
are  used  solely  to  throw,  if  possible,  a  little  light  on 
social  movement  (whether  forward  or  backward) 
in  this  country.  For  example,  an  Englishman  as 
intelligent  as  Janson,  living  here  thirteen  years, 
comes  to  this  conclusion  about  our  government :  — 


A  malicious  contemporary  sketch  of  Harriet  Martineau,  emphasizing  the 
fact  that  she  was  a  "  Maiden  Lady."  From  a  rare  cut  presented 
to  the  author  by  a  daughter  of  the  poet  Longfellow. 


THE   PROBLEM   OPENED  15 

"With  all  the  lights  of  experience  blazing  before  our  eyes, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  discern  the  futility  of  this  form  of  gov- 
ernment. It  was  weak  and  wicked  in  Athens.  It  was  bad  in 
Sparta,  and  worse  in  Rome.  It  has  been  tried  in  France,  and 
has  terminated  in  despotism.  It  was  tried  in  England,  and 
rejected  with  the  utmost  loathing  and  abhorrence.  It  is  on  trial 
here,  and  the  issue  will  be  civil  war,  desolation,  and  anarchy." 

However  haltingly  it  has  gone  with  us,  this  lower- 
ing judgment  is  a  landmark  from  which  we  derive 
encouragement. 

If  a  statesman  of  the  rank  of  Richard  Cobden 
finds  that  no  power  on  earth  can  prevent  the  swift 
triumph  of  free  trade  in  this  country ;  if  he  can  tabu- 
late all  the  reasons  why  liberty  in  trade  will  become 
as  sacred  to  Americans  as  liberty  in  other  spheres, 
that,  too,  is  a  landmark  stimulating  many  reflections. 
Miss  Martineau,  as  an  economist,  found  sure  evi- 
dence that  labor  and  capital  must  in  the  nature  of 
things  live  happily  together  under  our  institutions. 
She  found  entire  absence  of  paupers  and  a  state  of 
bliss  in  the  Lowell  cotton  mills. 

Another  has  proof  that  "opportunity"  together 
with  "solitary  confinement  in  our  magnificent  pris- 
ons" will  cause  the  total  disappearance  of  criminal 
classes  and  thus  take  off  a  great  burden  of  expenditure. 

The  greatest  of  French  critics  tells  us  why  our 
democracy  will  prevent  the  buying  of  votes.  With 
what  reflections  would  De  Tocqueville  now  investi- 
gate Pennsylvania  and  Rhode  Island  or,  indeed, 
most  of  our  States? 


1 6  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

These  are  samples  of  opinion  two  generations  ago. 
Like  landmarks,  they  fix  and  define  the  attention. 
A  little  later,  we  were  assured  that  the  days  of  the 
Republic  were  numbered  because  women  were  de- 
manding "rights"  which  would  turn  into  a  license, 
"destructive  of  the  very  elements  of  social  safety." 

From  such  driven  stakes,  we  may  test  movement 
and  direction  through  the  century.  With  specific 
exceptions,  it  is  a  story  extremely  chilling  to  the 
pessimist.  It  is,  upon  the  whole,  a  story  which  gives 
the  lie  to  a  thousand  dire  prophecies  that  the  people 
cannot  learn  self-government.  It  is  above  all  a 
story  that  puts  new  vitality  and  interest  into  our 
home  problems.  It  was  an  unexpected  reward  in 
reading  these  books  to  find  a  new  charm  in  American 
life.  Much  that  had  seemed  to  me  commonplace, 
dull,  or  trivial,  was  clothed  with  surprising  interest. 
Why  should  this  not  be  so? 

We  do  not  think  it  half  intelligent  to  travel  in 
Italy  without  our  Burckhardt,  Symonds,  Taine,  or 
other  literature  as  interpreter.  How  many  of  us 
do  this  for  our  own  country  ?  There  is  no  distinctive 
section  of  the  United  States  that  has  not  an  illumi- 
nating literature.  To  pass  along  the  trail  of  Andy 
Adams's  "Log  of  a  Cowboy"  with  that  book  in 
hand  is  to  get  three  or  four  times  as  much  pleasure 
out  of  the  trip.  The  same  service  is  done  for  other 
parts  of  the  country  by  Thoreau,  Cable,  Fox, 
Craddock,  Miss  Jewett,  Mrs.  Deland,  and  a  score 
of  others. 


THE   PROBLEM   OPENED  17 

I  saw  once  three  college  girls  on  the  boat  plying 
between  Richmond  and  Old  Point  Comfort.  One 
was  reading  a  novel  by  Daudet,  the  second  was 
absorbed  in  the  last  story  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward, 
and  the  third  by  something  quite  as  unrelated  to  the 
opportunities  of  the  day.  They  were  on  their  first 
trip  upon  this  most  interesting  river  in  America. 
Not  a  sweeping  curve  of  it  that  is  not  rich  with 
memorable  events.  John  Fiske's  "Virginia  and 
Her  Neighbors"  or  one  of  James  Rhodes' sterling 
volumes  gives  new  and  fascinating  meaning  to  every 
mile  of  that  day's  journey.  Think  of  a  college  girl 
passing  Jamestown  for  the  first  time,  dazed  by  a 
French  novel !  If  romance  were  a  necessity,  one 
would  think  that  the  local  color  in  stories,  like  those 
of  Ellen  Glasgow  or  Miss  Johnson  or  Thomas  Nelson 
Page,  might  meet  the  need. 

In  a  still  larger  way,  the  best  of  these  foreign  critics 
arouse  curiosity  about  problems  and  events  which  we 
so  largely  take  for  granted  as  to  feel  at  most  a  sleepy 
interest  in  them.  Even  the  superficial  observations 
of  the  stranger,  quick  to  notice  all  dissimilarity, 
arouse  our  home-consciousness  in  many  ways.  At 
the  St.  Louis  Exposition,  I  saw  a  most  intelligent 
and  experienced  American  teacher  thrown  into  a 
state  of  lively  excitement  by  so  simple  a  question  as 
this.  A  German  teacher  asked:  "In  your  Edu- 
cational Exhibits,  why  do  you  display  the  work  of 
the  pupils  so  much,  and  the  efficiency  of  the  teachers 
so  little  ?  It  looks  as  if  you  were  trying  to  show  them 


1 8  AS   OTHERS   SEE    US 

off."  "Well,"  he  answered,  "I  never  in  my  life 
thought  of  it  before,  but  I  think  that  is  precisely 
what  we  do.  Yes,  we  try  to  show  them  off  too 
much."  It  was  the  contention  of  the  German  that 
far  more  should  be  made  of  the  training  and  com- 
petence of  the  instructor;  that  this  should  be  at  the 
front  rather  than  a  display  of  the  child.  "We  do 
not  think  one  quite  fit  to  teach  in  our  German  schools 
unless  he  is  so  solidly  prepared  and  so  far  beyond 
his  pupils  as  to  be  perfectly  secure.  If  he  has  to 
show  off  the  class,  or  to  struggle  with  his  subject 
in  order  to  keep  just  ahead  of  those  he  teaches,  the 
best  result  cannot  possibly  be  reached." 

With  the  merits  of  this  observation,  I  am  less  con- 
cerned than  with  the  effect  upon  the  American 
teacher.  He  said,  "The  conversation  with  that 
German  has  paid  me  for  coming  to  St.  Louis,  if  I 
don't  learn  another  thing." 

About  every  phase  of  our  life  and  institutions,  this 
is  what  the  outside  observer  may  do  for  us. 

An  English  writer  does  not  overstate  it  when  he 
says :  "  I  read  Bryce  before  I  left  home,  and  I  read 
him  again  while  here.  The  trip  would  have  been 
worth  the  two  hundred  pounds  it  cost  me  if  I  had 
read  nothing  else.  Bryce  has  added  at  least  four- 
fold, both  to  the  pleasure  and  profit." 

It  is  almost  an  equal  service  that  these  books  may 
render  to  us  at  home. 

Before  passing  to  the  general  account  of  these 
critics  in  the  following  chapter,  one  observation 


THE    PROBLEM    OPENED  19 

should  be  made.  To  criticise  or  to  make  merry 
over  the  peculiarities  of  foreign  peoples  has  been 
from  time  immemorial  one  of  the  never  failing 
sources  of  national  gaiety.  Every  variety  of  per- 
sonal and  race  difference  becomes  a  natural  target 
for  ridicule  or  censure.  An  Englishman  goes  to 
live  in  a  small  French  town  in  1803.  He  writes 
home  that  "these  barbarians  make  fun  of  me 
everywhere  just  because  I  am  properly  dressed  and 
speak  the  language  of  a  human  being.  They 
chatter  like  apes  and  dress  like  Punch  and  Judy." 
In  spite  of  so  much  admiration,  Voltaire  sees  the 
English,  Shakespeare  included,  as  essentially  bar- 
barians; while  to  the  average  Englishman  of  that 
time,  the  French  were  "half  insane  and  half  mon- 
key." 1  This  provincialism  is  not  confined  to  the 
stay-at-homes  or  to  the  ignorant.  It  disturbs,  as  we 
shall  see,  the  judgment  of  very  wise  men. 

As  one  of  our  haunting  perplexities  will  be  in 
avoiding  local  standards  of  comparison,  as  our 
institutions  and  national  behavior  are  brought  to  the 
bar,  I  shall  make  frequent  reference  to  four  critics 
who  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  United  States: 
Karl  Hillebrand's  "France  and  the  French,"  Hamer- 
ton's  "French  and  English,"  De  Amicis'  "Holland," 

1  "Frenchmen,"  Coleridge  said,  "are  like  grains  of  gunpowder: 
each  by  itself  smutty  and  contemptible,  but  mass  them  together 
and  they  are  terrible  indeed!"  Johnson  referred  to  Americans 
as  "a  race  of  convicts  who  ought  to  be  thankful  for  anything  we 
allow  them  short  of  hanging."  He  was  "willing  to  love  all  man- 
kind, except  an  American." 


20  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

and  Taine's  "Notes  on  England."  These  are 
critics  of  so  high  a  class ;  each  with  so  much  knowl- 
edge and  so  much  cosmopolitan  sympathy,  that  we 
may  by  their  help  correct  the  narrowing  tendency  to 
praise  or  condemn  because  our  own  village  standards 
are  set  at  naught. 


CHAPTER  II 

CONCERNING   OUR  CRITICS 

IT  would  be  better  if  four-fifths  of  the  earlier 
critical  literature  here  dealt  with  could  be  expurgated. 
We  should  thus  be  relieved  from  reading  for  the 
fortieth  time  that  we  lack  many  things:  courtly 
behavior,  a  great  literature,  the  ennobling  ministries 
of  the  fine  arts,  imposing  ruins,  and  cathedrals. 
We  should  be  relieved  of  interminable  commentary 
on  our  bad  roads,  hotels,  boarding-houses,  rocking- 
chairs,  ice-water,  hot  bread,  overheated  rooms, 
mountainous  helps  to  ice-cream,  and  even  Niagara. 
A  reasonable  disclosure  of  these  deficiencies  en- 
lightens and  exhilarates,  but  there  is  a  pitch  of 
reiteration  beyond  which  hot  bread  and  Niagara 
alike  become  a  surfeit.  It  was  thus  a  pleasant 
shock  when  H.  G.  WeUs  refused  to  admire  Niagara. 
He  is  the  first  to  break  the  long  monotony  of  approval. 
The  Falls  may  be  said  to  be  the  only  American 
phenomenon  in  the  praise  of  which  all  previous 
critics  agree.  They  pretty  nearly  agree  about  our 
bragging  and  about  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  but 
with  nothing  like  the  unanimity  with  which  they 
approach  Niagara.  To  all  observers  it  is  an  instant 


22  AS   OTHERS    SEE    US 

challenge  to  a  literary  flight.  It  seems  as  profane 
to  leave  it  undescribed  as  to  pass  it  by  altogether. 
In  recent  years  three  objects  have  diverted  attention 
somewhat  from  the  above  list:  the  sky-scraper,  the 
observation-car,  and  the  Statue  of  Liberty  in  New 
York  Harbor.  To  the  visitor  landing  and  departing, 
this  proud  lady  with  her  luminous  torch  "enlighten- 
ing the  world"  is  at  once  a  symbol  and  an  inspiration. 
If  he  thinks  well  of  us,  the  draped  figure  becomes 
alive  and  radiant  with  hope.  If  he  thinks  ill  of  us, 
the  poor  lady  serves  only  for  taunts  and  satire.  So 
conspicuous  is  she  at  the  point  of  landing  that  ice- 
water  and  rocking-chairs  are  in  peril  of  being  over- 
looked by  future  travellers. 

At  whatever  risk,  I  shall  make  slight  use  of  all 
these  overworked  objects.  We  shall  not  as  a  nation 
stand  or  fall  on  our  hot  bread  or  even  on  our  por- 
tentous helps  to  ice-cream  or  the  majestic  demeanor 
of  our  hotel  clerks.  That  in  our  thinly  populated 
days  we  should  have  had  bad  roads ;  that  we  should 
be  late  in  developing  literature  and  the  arts;  that 
the  very  immensity  of  our  natural  resources  should 
have  hitherto  chiefly  absorbed  our  energies,  putting 
inventions,  trade,  and  the  dollar-mark  much  to  the 
front,  are  facts  so  easily  accounted  for  that  one 
wonders  why  they  should  have  called  out  so  much 
reproachful  and  condescending  speculation. 

As  it  is  our  purpose  to  get  the  best  out  of  those 
who  come  to  study  us,  it  is  first  necessary  to  ask  who 
our  critic  is,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  what  motive 


CONCERNING   OUR   CRITICS  23 

brought  him.  We  have  an  English  lecturer  writing 
openly,  "I  really  went  out  there  [to  the  United 
States]  for  the  express  purpose  of  showing  what  a 
mess  they  are  making  of  it."  A  very  great  person, 
socially,  lived  some  months  in  Hoboken,  New  Jersey 
because  he  was  a  fugitive  from  English  justice.  He 
disliked  us  extremely  and  even  had  his  fling  at 
Hoboken  as  a  place  of  residence.  A  tenderly 
nurtured  gentleman  with  royal  blood  in  him  can  be 
forgiven  much  under  those  circumstances.  That 
Prince  Talleyrand,  after  living  his  life  among  the 
most  stirring  events  and  brilliant  company  in 
Europe,  should  find  us  tiresome  can  be  understood 
without  much  strain  on  the  imagination.  It  is  also 
satisfying  that  we  have  received  our  most  abusive 
reproofs  from  men  like  Renan,  Carlyle,  and  Ruskin, 
who  never  came  to  us.  The  poet-craftsman  William 
Morris  was  also  at  one  with  them,  until  he  was 
shown  photographs  of  Richardson's  architecture. 
This  brought  from  him  the  exclamation,  "Talent 
like  that  may  save  the  States  after  all."  To  "Ameri- 
canize" anything  was,  to  Renan,  the  measure  of  its 
vulgarization.1  All  these  safe-distance  critics  were 
urged  to  visit  this  country,  but  refused  for  the  same 
reason  that  a  famous  American  refused  to  go  to 
Chicago,  because  —  it  was  Chicago. 

Many  of  those  who  came  in  the  first  half  of  the 

1  The  French  lecturer,  M.  Blouet  (Max  O'Rell),  referring  to 
Kenan's  fear  that  France  would  become  "Americanized,"  replied, 
"May  nothing  worse  happen  to  her!" 


24  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

century  are  at  pains  to  tell  us  about  the  motives  that 
brought  them.  In  the  main  it  was  the  desire  to 
study  men  and  institutions  developing  under  sup- 
posedly democratic  government. 

Cut  loose  from  England,  what  would  happen  with 
power  at  last  in  the  hands  of  the  people !  Nowhere 
was  curiosity  about  all  this  so  keen  as  in  France. 
Prizes  were  there  proposed  for  essays  on  this  subject. 
It  was  seen  that  Europe  could  not  escape  the  influ- 
ence of  every  democratic  success  in  America.  All 
those  who  believed  that  the  people  should  be  saved 
by  their  social  superiors ;  that  political  and  economic 
blessings  should  be  confined  to  the  squire  and  his 
relations,  and  common  folk  kept  in  their  proper 
stations,  looked  upon  our  independence  as  a  threat 
to  the  world's  well-being. 

The  industrious  Abbe*  Raynal  had  the  good  of 
the  universe  much  at  heart.  He  concluded,  in  a 
work  ponderous  with  misinformation,  that  the  dis- 
covery of  America  was  a  stark  calamity.  Another, 
M.  Genty,1  showed  in  much  detail  why  the  happiness 
of  the  race  is  put  in  jeopardy  by  our  discoverer. 
According  to  John  Fiske,  these  timorous  patricians 
agreed  in  only  one  thing.  One  good  and  one  only 
must  be  accorded  to  the  enterprise  of  Columbus  — 
quinine.  That  had  resulted  from  the  discovery,  and 
European  fevers  were  checked.  But  the  brave 
Genty  doubted  if  political  and  social  fevers  would 
get  any  cooling  from  our  shores.  Even  if  commerce 

1 "  L'influence  de  la  Decouverte  de  l'Am£rique,"  1789. 


CONCERNING   OUR   CRITICS  25 

should  swell,  what  result  could  follow  but  a  plague 
of  new  wants  to  satisfy? 

We  get  encouragement  from  only  one  of  these 
prize  writers.  He  had  at  least  been  to  America, 
where  he  had  served  as  general  under  Rochambeau. 
He  had  a  noble  enthusiasm  for  Franklin  and  Wash- 
ington. This  critic,  the  Marquis  of  Chastellux, 
was  the  author  of  that  pen  picture  of  Washington 
that  has  become  so  familiar  but  always  pleasant  to 
read  again. 

"His  stature  is  noble  and  lofty,  he  is  well  made,  and  exactly 
proportioned ;  his  physiognomy  mild  and  agreeable,  but  such 
as  to  render  it  impossible  to  speak  particularly  of  any  of  his 
features,  so  that  in  quitting  him,  you  have  only  the  recollection 
of  a  fine  face.  He  has  neither  a  grave  nor  a  familiar  air,  his 
brow  is  sometimes  marked  with  thought,  but  never  with  in- 
quietude ;  in  inspiring  respect,  he  inspires  confidence,  and  his 
smile  is  always  the  smile  of  benevolence." 

He  was  also  the  author  of  other  passages  which 
prove  him  to  have  been  a  most  philosophic  observer. 
He  thinks,  as  De  Tocqueville  did  later,  that  we  were 
fitted  at  least  for  stimulating  vast  material  prosperity 
which  might  prove  big  with  danger.  This  leads  to 
the  following  reflection  upon  the  inevitable  coming 
of  inequalities  in  a  democracy  due  to  great  wealth 
among  the  favored  few :  — 

"Now,  wherever  this  inequality  exists,  the  real  force  will 
invariably  be  on  the  side  of  property,  so  that  if  the  influence 
in  government  be  not  proportioned  to  that  property,  there 
will  always  be  a  contrariety,  a  combat  between  the  form  of 


26  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

government  and  its  natural  tendency;  the  right  will  be  on 
one  side,  and  the  power  on  the  other;  the  balance  then  can 
only  exist  between  the  two  equally  dangerous  extremes  of 
aristocracy  and  anarchy.  Besides,  the  ideal  worth  of  men 
must  ever  be  comparative;  an  individual  without  property 
is  a  discontented  citizen,  when  the  State  is  poor;  place  a  rich 
man  near  him,  he  dwindles  into  a  clown.  What  will  result 
then,  one  day,  from  vesting  the  right  of  election  in  this  class 
of  citizens  ?  The  source  of  civil  broils,  or  corruption,  perhaps 
both  at  the  same  time." 

He  foresaw  this  danger  from  our  politicians : l  — 

"The  leaders  rather  seek  to  please  than  serve  them  [the 
people];  obliged  to  gain  their  confidence  before  they  merit  it, 
they  are  more  inclined  to  flatter  than  instruct  them,  and  fear- 
ing to  lose  the  favor  they  have  acquired,  they  finish  by  becom- 
ing the  slaves  of  the  multitude  whom  they  pretended  to 
govern." 

As  with  the  letters  of  Frederika  Bremer  and  the 
French  Ambassador  de  Bacourl,  Chastellux  is  all 
the  more  valuable  because,  in  making  his  notes,  he 
had  no  thought  of  publishing  them. 

But  the  importance  of  the  motive  will  best  be  seen 
through  examples.  Many  of  the  first  comers  are 
at  no  pains  to  conceal  the  purpose  of  their  visit,  or 
what  determined  them  to  write  a  book  about  us. 

The  day  of  the  reporter  had  not  come,  and  there 
was  little  fear  of  the  press. 

A  good  illustration  of  this  is  C.  W.  Janson's 
"Stranger  in  America."  He  comes  with  a  small 

1  "Travels  in  North  America  in  1780-1782,"  Chastellux,  pp.  73, 
131.  154. 


CONCERNING   OUR   CRITICS  27 

fortune  in  search  of  investment.1  Before  he  lands, 
he  is  nicknamed  "the  Grumbler."  He  says,  "I 
am  ready  to  confess  that  I  put  myself  foremost  in 
our  struggle  to  redress  grievances."  In  that  charac- 
ter he  lived  more  than  ten  years  in  the  United  States. 
His  investments  failed,  and  thus  returning  full  of 
expansive  aversion,  he  published  his  book  in  London 
in  1807.  He  is  not  only  annoyed  by  our  curiosities 
but  lets  it  be  known  that  he  is  annoyed.  He  avoids 
the  hotel  keepers  because  they  are  so  "irksome." 
One  of  his  first  experiences  was  in  knocking  at  the 
door  of  an  acquaintance;  Mr.  Janson  asked  the 
domestic  who  opened  to  him,  "Is  your  master  at 
home?"  "I  have  no  master."  "Don't  you  live 
here?"  "I  stay  here."  "And  who  are  you  then?" 

"Why,  I  am  Mr 's  help.     I'd  have  you  know, 

man,  that  I'm  no  servant."  2 

In  1833  in  his  "Men  and  Manners  in  America," 
Hamilton  shows  his  motive :  — 

"When  I  found  the  institutions  and  the  experience  of  the 
United  States  quoted  in  the  reformed  Parliament  as  affording 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  83. 

Janson  copies  from  a  paper  in  Salem,  Mass.,  the  following:  — 
"  Died  in  Salem,  James  Verry,  aged  twelve,  a  promising  youth, 

whose  early  death  is  supposed  to  have  been  brought  on  by  excessive 

smoking." 

The  author  claims  to  have  seen  this  practice  very  generally 

among  mere  children.     Several  other  writers  note  this  excessive 

use  of  tobacco  among  the  young. 

2  It  is  a  pleasure  to  hear  William  Brown  of  Leeds,  England, 
who  was  here  four  years,  say  plainly  that  he  met  no  proud  people, 
but  only  those  in  very  humble  circumstances.  —  "America,"  1849. 


28  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

safe  precedent  for  British  legislation,  and  learned  that  the 
drivelers  who  uttered  such  nonsense,  instead  of  encountering 
merited  derision,  were  listened  to  with  patient  approbation 
by  men  as  ignorant  as  themselves,  I  certainly  did  feel  that 
another  work  on  America  was  yet  wanted." 

For  nearly  fifty  years  of  the  period  here  covered, 
it  was  a  social  advantage  in  England  to  print  evi- 
dences against  the  United  States.  This  may  be 
seen  in  the  tiptoe  anxiety  with  which  Buckingham 
beseeches  His  Majesty  to  look  with  favor  on  his 
fat  volumes.  It  was  obvious  in  Tom  Moore, 
Dickens,  and  Mrs.  Trollope. 

In  his  "Diary"1  Marryat  writes:  — 

"Never  was  there  such  an  opportunity  of  testing  the  merits 
of  a  republic,  of  ascertaining  if  such  a  form  of  government 
could  be  maintained —  in  fact,  of  proving  whether  an  en- 
lightened people  could  govern  themselves." 

When  Harriet  Martineau  wrote  her  slashing  review 
of  his  book,  Marryat  replied,  "My  object  was  to  do 
injury  to  democracy."  He  desires  that  his  opinions 
on  democracy  shall  be  "read  by  every  tradesman 
and  mechanic:  pored  over  even  by  milliners'  girls 
and  boys  behind  the  counter,  and  thumbed  to  pieces 
in  every  petty  circulating  library.  I  wrote  the  book 
with  this  object,  and  I  wrote  it  accordingly." 

This  gifted  writer,  coming  with  so  fixed  a  purpose, 
will,  of  course,  find  what  he  came  for.  After  the 
same  manner  Thomas  Brothers  says,  "My  principal 
object  was  to  convince  you  .  .  .  that  under  what 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  132. 


CONCERNING   OUR   CRITICS  29 

is  called  self-government  there  may  be  as  much 
oppression,  poverty,  and  worthlessness,  as  under  t 
any  other  form  of  government."  He  gives  254 
closely  printed  pages  in  appendices,  which  are  a 
solid  collection  of  horrors  and  disgrace  taken  from 
the  press. 

What  was  the  chief  object  of  Mrs.  Trollope? 
"To  encourage  her  countrymen  to  hold  fast  by  a 
constitution  that  insures  all  the  blessings  which 
flow  from  established  habits  and  solid  principles." 
"If  they  forego  these,  they  will  incur  the  fearful 
risks  of  breaking  up  their  repose  by  introducing  the 
jarring  tumult  and  universal  degradation  which 
invariably  follow  the  wild  scheme  of  placing  all  the 
power  of  the  State  in  the  hands  of  the  populace." 
Henceforth,  in  great  abundance,  this  lady  finds  at 
every  turn  supporting  evidence. 

I  do  not  claim  that  these  predispositions  destroy 
the  value  of  the  criticisms.  They  do,  however, 
enable  us,  in  making  them  an  object  of  study,  to 
classify  and  use  them  with  more  intelligence. 

We  have  no  difficulty  with  Francis  Wyse  and  his 
three  volumes  when  we  know  why  he  came.  He 
wanted  to  warn  all  healthy  Englishmen  not  to  leave 
their  country.  English  employers  will  certainly 
have  to  pay  higher  wages  if  this  emigration  continues ; 
therefore,  Americans  are  the  least  trustworthy  of 
nations  —  they  have  a  notorious  and  abominable 
disregard  for  truth  and  no  regard  for  contracts.1 

1  "America:   Its  Realities  and  Resources,"  F.  Wyse,  3  vols. 


30  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

In  this  study  of  motives  that  merry  poet,  Tom 
Moore,  is  admirable  as  an  example.  His  stinging 
lines  against  us  stirred  bitterness  and  rage  in  the 
hearts  of  thousands  of  Americans.  It  is  a  curious 
sort  of  American  that  cannot  to-day  read  the  rhymed 
squibs  of  this  poet  without  any  rankling.  We  were 
a  fair  target  for  some  of  those  metered  shafts.  But 
more  than  this,  we  know  about  the  poet  just  as  we 
know  about  Mrs.  Trollope.  She  was  in  the  sorest 
stress  for  money.  Her  last  resource  for  raising  funds 
in  Cincinnati  had  gone  with  her  Bazaar.  She  must 
write  a  book  about  the  Americans  and  about  their 
manners  from  which  she  had  suffered  most.  In  a 
raw  town  of  twenty  thousand  people,  she  had 
watched  America  from  the  windows  of  a  second-class 
boarding-house.  If  her  book  was  to  sell,  it  must 
sell  in  England.  Nine-tenths  of  the  people  who 
bought  books  at  that  time  thought  extremely  ill  of 
this  country.  With  that  class  feeling  constantly  in 
mind,  the  disappointed  woman  wrote  her  volumes. 
Mr.  Weller  senior  fully  explains  her  and  her  kind, 
"  An  then  let  him  come  back  and  write  a  book  about 
the  'Merrikins  as'll  pay  all  his  expenses  and  more, 
if  he  blows  'em  up  enough." 

It  was  not  essentially  different  with  the  Irish  poet. 
The  son  of  a  Dublin  grocer,  he  goes  up  to  London 
where  he  becomes  at  once  the  darling  among  fashion- 
able diners  out.  "Where  Tom  sits  no  host  feels 
insecure."  The  poet  can  entertain  all  companies. 
He  comes  to  the  United  States  in  1804,  but  loves 


CONCERNING   OUR   CRITICS  31 

best  to  dine  with  English  officers,  many  of  whose 
ships  were  then  here.  What  do  the  poet's  entertainers 
relish  so  much  as  merry  verses  and  smart  hits  at  the 
expense  of  the  rustics  on  land  ?  Over  the  rim  of  the 
champagne  glass,  or  writing  to  Lady  This  or  Lord 
That,  he  paints  his  word-pictures  —  a  kind  of  rake's 
progress  —  solely  for  ears  that  delight  in  our  dis- 
repute. 

When  Lord  John  Russell  says  in  his  preface  to 
Moore's  letters,  "the  sight  of  democracy  triumphant 
soon  disgusted  him,"  we  know  that  the  poet's  con- 
clusion was  as  much  expected  as  it  was  pleasurable. 
He  goes  from  Norfolk  to  Baltimore  over  roads 
that  were  "as  barbarous  as  the  inhabitants."  He 
writes :  — 

"How  often  has  it  occurred  to  me  that  nothing  can  be 
more  emblematic  of  the  government  of  this  country  than 
its  stages,  filled  with  a  motley  mixture,  all  'hail  fellow  well 
met,'  driving  through  mud  and  filth,  which  bespatters  them 
as  they  raise  it,  and  risking  an  upset  at  every  step.  ...  As 
soon  as  I  am  away  from  them,  both  the  stages  and  the  gov- 
ernment may  have  the  same  fate  for  what  I  care." 

From  Washington  he  writes  to  Lord  Forbes  that 
the  days  of  Columbia  are  already  numbered,  for 
on  her  brow  — 

"The  showy  smile  of  young  presumption  plays, 
Her  bloom  is  poison'd  and  her  heart  decays." 

"Already  has  she  pour'd  her  poison  here 
O'er  every  charm  that  makes  existence  dear." 


32  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

"With  honest  scorn  for  that  inglorious  soul 
Which  creeps  and  winds  beneath  a  mob's  control, 
Which  courts  the  rabble's  smile,  the  rabble's  nod, 
And  makes  like  Egypt  every  beast  a  god." 

"Take  Christians,  Mohawks,  democrats  and  all, 
From  the  rude  wigwam  to  the  Congress  hall, — 
'Tis  one  dull  chaos,  one  infertile  strife 
Betwixt  half-polished  and  half-barbarous  life." 

These  tuneful  amenities  contain  the  same  opinions 
of  us  that  we  find  in  the  private  affectionate  letters 
to  his  mother.  He  betrays  thus  no  inconsistency. 

Merely  to  state  the  social  setting  of  this  favorite 
minstrel  and  the  time  in  which  he  wrote,  should 
leave  the  most  ardent  patriot  among  us  quite  serene. 
There  was  even  some  excuse,  as  1804  was  the  year 
when  party  scurrility  and  vindictiveness  reached 
perhaps  the  lowest  pitch  in  our  history.  The  lam- 
poons of  Callender  against  Jefferson  were  of  an 
incredible  grossness  that  the  present  day  would  not 
for  an  instant  tolerate.  That  the  President  was 
guilty  of  miscellaneous  amours  was  the  least  of  the 
charges.  We  may  be  certain  that  many  a  Federalist 
assured  the  poet  that  these  libels  were  true.  They 
knew  Callender  to  be  coarsely  venal  and  a  liar  ; 
they  called  him  so  while  he  was  their  enemy.  But 
now  that,  as  turncoat,  he  attacked  Jefferson,  his 
coarsest  blackguardism  was  welcome.  The  histo- 
rian Morse  says,  "  Every  Federalist  writer  hastened 
to  draw  for  his  own  use  bucketful  after  bucketful 


CONCERNING   OUR  CRITICS  33 

from  Callender's  foul  reservoir  and  the  gossip  about 
Jefferson's  graceless  debaucheries  was  sent  into 
every  household  in  the  United  States."  The  New 
England  clergy  took  so  active  a  hand  in  these  defa- 
mations that  Jefferson  wrote:  "From  the  clergy  I 
expect  no  mercy.  They  crucified  the  Saviour,  who 
preached  that  their  Kingdom  was  not  of  the  world : 
and  all  who  practise  on  that  precept  must  expect 
the  extreme  of  their  wrath."  Josiah  Quincy  said 
Jefferson  was  a  "transparent  fraud"  and  his  fol- 
lowers "ruffians."  From  Pickering,  Cabot,  Rufus 
King,  Fisher  Ames,  and  Griswold  —  the  very  light 
and  leading  of  social  respectability  —  the  same  omi- 
nous judgments  may  be  quoted,  while  to  the 
president  of  Yale  College  our  government  was  in 
possession  of  "blockheads  and  knaves."  These 
model  citizens  were  at  that  moment  freely  circulating 
against  Jefferson  such  bits  of  gossip  as  that  "  he  had 
obtained  his  property  by  fraud  and  robbery;  that 
in  one  instance  he  had  defrauded  and  robbed  a  widow 
and  fatherless  children  of  an  estate  to  which  he  was 
executor,  of  ten  thousand  pounds  sterling,"  etc. 

We  are  to-day  justly  sensitive  against  any  insinua- 
tion that  the  high  judiciary  is  corrupt,  but  in  1804 
there  was  circulated  in  the  press  by  a  member  of 
the  Supreme  Bench  a  charge  that  "  the  independence 
of  the  national  judiciary  is  shaken  to  its  founda- 
tions" and  that  "mobocracy"  had  us  finally  in  its 

grip- 
It  is  into  this  atmosphere  that  the  Irish  poet  comes. 


34  AS   OTHERS    SEE    US 

From  the  "best  citizens"  he  hears  night  after  night 
more  damaging  criticism  against  our  democracy 
than  any  which  he  puts  into  verse.  He  is  only  trying 
to  find  good  rhymes  for  what  well-to-do  Americans 
tell  him  about  their  government. 

The  essence  of  revolution  is  the  passing  of  power 
from  one  class  to  another.  Federal  control,  with  the 
lingering  intellectual  feudalism  still  inhering  in  it, 
was  beginning  to  pass  to  the  democrats  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  nineteenth  century.  Nowhere  among 
these  foreign  critics  is  there  such  bitter  censure  as 
our  own  "Society"  was  everywhere  heaping  upon 
the  new' democracy.  It  was  "as  destitute  of  man- 
ners as  it  was  of  morals  and  religion."  It  had 
"robbed  life  of  decency  and  the  future  of  hope." 
These  cheerful  confidences  were  dinner  table  coin 
from  Philadelphia  to  Boston.  An  English  visitor 
in  1824  says :  "  These  Americans  are  so  merciless 
in  criticising  their  own  government  that  nothing 
is  left  over  for  the  outsider." 

These  drawing-room  aspersions  were  still  at  white 
heat  when  Miss  Martineau  came  thirty  years  later. 
She  was  at  first  welcomed  by  very  aristocratic 
families  "  as  the  most  distinguished  woman  that  had 
come  to  us."  Of  her  reception  she  writes :  — 

"The  first  gentleman  who  greeted  me  on  my  arrival  in 
the  United  States,  a  few  minutes  after  I  had  landed,  in- 
formed me,  without  delay,  that  I  had  arrived  at  an  unhappy 
crisis;  that  the  institutions  of  the  country  would  be  in  ruin 
before  my  return  to  England;  that  the  levelling  spirit  was 


CONCERNING   OUR   CRITICS  35 

desolating  society;   and  that  the  United  States  were  on  the 
verge  of  a  military  despotism."  : 

Her  own  honest  human  sympathies  protected  her 
from  this  influence.  But  the  average  foreign  critic 
had  only  to  listen  to  such  talk  and  then  turn  it  to  his 
own  use.  He  is  talking  about  us  as  those  among 
us  out  of  power  were  themselves  talking. 

When  this  is  clear,  there  is  little  to  resent.  When 
we  know  that  Sydney  Smith  had  made  a  disastrous 
money  investment  in  this  country,  we  sympathize 
with  his  invective. 

When  Kipling  first  came,  he  was  smarting  against 
us  because  we  had  pirated  his  books.  In  this  mood 
he  found  the  first  city  in  which  he  landed  "inhabited 
by  the  insane";  the  reporters  were  all  like  "rude 
children";  our  speech  was  "a  horror";  everybody 
was  "wolfing"  his  food;  and  even  our  American 
enterprise  was  only  "grotesque  ferocity." 

We  can  explain  and  account  for  many  of  our 
critics,  leaving  behind  as  little  justifiable  irritation 
on  our  part  as  in  the  case  of  Moore  and  Kipling. 
We  object  to  a  man  like  Thomas  Ashe,  because  he 
was  a  plain  liar,  not  because  he  finds  fault  with  us. 
When  Isaac  Weld  says  our  mosquitoes  bite  through 
the  thickest  boots,  and  a  French  author  gets  William 
Penn  over  here  in  the  Mayflower,  we  are  prepared 
to  discount  some  of  their  confident  generalizations. 
M.  Moreau,  as  he  closes  a  well-meant  volume,2 

1  "Society  in  America,"  Vol.  I,  p.  98. 

2  "  L'Envers  des  Etats-Unis." 


36  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

relieves  us  generally  of  all  difficulty  in  fixing  his 
place  among  serious  critics.  Our  road  to  ruin,  ac- 
cording to  him,  is  the  drunkenness  of  our  women. 
M.  Moreau  has  just  left  us,  so  that  his  information 
startles  us  by  its  newness.  Not  only  does  the 
American  woman  drink,  but  she  drinks  like  Falstaff. 
He  sees  the  curse  not  merely  as  a  cloud  on  our 
horizon,  but  as  a  heavy  pall  that  threatens  the  very 
light  of  the  nation's  life.  He  compares  the  pro- 
gressive deterioration  to  the  rolling  snowball,  gath- 
ering weight  and  mass  as  it  hurries  to  destruction. 
His  words  are  strong.  This  plague  among  our 
women  is  an  "atrocious  evil,"  "a  terrible  menace." 
His  climax  of  dismay  at  our  impending  doom 
culminates  when  he  asks,  "Are  there  exceptions?" 
As  a  friend  of  ours,  he  would  fain  believe  that 
exceptions  exist,  yet  the  number  of  semi-sots  is  so 
great  that  he  is  in  doubt.  That  the  women 
drinkers  "constitute  a  very  strong  majority"  he  is 
firmly  convinced.  He  is  moved  to  qualify  his 
statement  so  far  as  to  admit  that  it  is  rare  to  see 
the  women  "fall  an  inert  mass"  from  intoxication, 
but  in  dangerous  degrees  they  drink  "so  as  to  act 
unconsciously."  1 

This  gentleman  has  seen  a  great  deal  of  our  life 
and  met  or  corresponded  with  some  of  the  ablest 

1  An  Englishman  writes  that  while  the  man  in  the  United 
States  consumes  enormous  quantities  of  liquor  in  the  form  of 
"coffee  varnish"  and  "dead  man's  pallor,"  "if  a  woman  took  a 
glass  of  wine,  they  would  send  for  the  police." 


CONCERNING    OUR   CRITICS  37 

Americans.  I  have  tried  to  get  the  history  of  his 
dire  prophecy  of  our  downfall  through  woman's 
inebriety.  In  part  at  least  it  is  this.  There  are  a 
good  many  country  clubs  about  our  larger  cities, 
frequented  by  lively  young  women  who  take  great 
liberties  with  highballs  and  cocktails.  They  often 
order  them  with  much  bravado  and  with  a  kind  of 
expansion  that  seems  to  fill  the  entire  landscape. 
It  is  something  from  which  one  would  like  to  look 
away,  but  its  very  singularity  and  extravagance  hold 
the  attention.  The  larger  city  has  also  a  group  of 
popular  restaurants,  patronized  alike  by  the  half- 
world  and  by  those  who  feel  far  above  it,  but  cannot 
be  quite  sure,  except  by  close  and  constant  inspection 
of  their  moral  inferiors.  Any  and  all  of  these  much- 
haunted  resorts  would  give  a  touring  stranger  just 
the  opinion  which  Monsieur  Moreau  came  to  enter- 
tain. If  he  saw  the  most  highly  paced  among  our 
various  smart  sets,  he  might  again  draw  sinister 
inferences  about  our  future.  But  to  draw  large  con- 
clusions about  national  morals  from  these  vagabond 
data  is  to  lose  one's  head  as  a  competent  observer. 
As  far  as  possible  serious  critics  alone  will  here 
claim  our  attention. 

Among  our  visitors  are  the  following :  — 
From  France,  Brissot  de  Warville;  the  Count  de 
Se'gur;  the  Dukes  La  Rochefoucauld-Liancourt 
and  de  Lausan;  the  Marquis  of  Chastellux;  Cha- 
teaubriand; Lafayette;  Volney  (he  of  the  Ruins); 
Prince  Talleyrand;  De  Gasparin;  a  son  of 


38  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

Napoleon's  favorite  General  Murat,  who  was  here 
many  years;  De  Tocqueville;  Ampere;  the  Duke 
of  Chartres  (Louis  Philippe);  the  Utopian  Cabet; 
the  economist  Chevalier  sent  on  a  brief  mission  by 
Thiers  but  becoming  so  interested  that  he  spent 
two  years  ;  the  sociologist  De  Rousier  ;  Professor 
Claudio  Janet ;  the  present  Prime  Minister  Clemen- 
ceau;  the  publicist  Carlier;  the  academician  Paul 
Bourget ;  Madame  Blanc  (Th.  Bentzon) ;  Edmond 
de  Nevers;  Paul  Adam;  Abbe"  Klein;  and  Pastor 
Wagner. 

From  England  have  come  Robert  Owen;  the 
Trollopes,  mother  and  son;  Harriet  Martineau; 
Mrs.  Jameson;  Marryat;  Dickens;  Thackeray; 
Cobden;  Fanny  Kemble;  Combe;  and  the  re- 
doubtable Cobbett ;  Sir  Charles  Lyell  (four  volumes) ; 
Tyndall;  Huxley;  Spencer;  Frederic  Harrison; 
Matthew  Arnold;  John  Morley;  Freeman,  the 
historian;  Kipling;  Sir  Robert  Ball,  the  astronomer; 
James  Bryce;  and  Joseph  Chamberlain. 

From  Germany :  F.  J.  Grund ;  J.  I.  Kohl ;  Weit- 
ling,  the  socialist;  Professor  von  Raumer;  Prince 
von  Wied ;  F.  Bodenstedt ;  Herr  Grillenberger ;  Von 
Hoist ;  Von  Polenz ;  Karl  Zimmermann  ;  Professor 
Munsterberg;  the  historian  Lamprecht;  Fulda, 
the  dramatist;  and  Professor  Andreas  Baumgarten. 

In  the  way  of  approval,  of  censure,  or  of  warning, 
these  observers  should  have  a  various  message  from 
which  a  little  open-mindedness  and  good-will  on  our 
part  ought  to  pluck  some  profit. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHO  IS  THE  AMERICAN? 

THE  foreign  students  of  this  country  have  far  less 
difficulty  with  our  institutions,  our  government,  our 
education,  and  general  resources  than  with  our  more 
personal  life.  What  has  been  done  on  this  continent  or 
left  undone  may  be  brought  to  judgment.  But,  Who 
is  the  American  ?  He  is  the  main  object  of  inquiry. 

Sometimes  the  question  is,  What  kind  of  human 
being  are  they  making  in  the  United  States  ?  Again 
it  is,  What  institutions  are  here  being  shaped  by  the 
American  character?  In  both,  it  is  the  sort  of  man 
and  woman  in  the  making  that  is  of  fundamental 
interest  to  the  inquirer.  What,  then,  is  the  human 
product  called  the  American? 

The  English  historian  Freeman  used  to  speak  of 
us  as  a  lot  of  Englishmen  who  had  strayed  from 
home.  We  had  taken  with  us  a  complete  outfit  of 
political  and  other  traditions  that  we  were  working 
out  under  slightly  different  conditions.  When  he 
came  here  in  1883,  he  still  said,  "To  me  most  cer- 
tainly the  United  States  did  not  seem  a  foreign 
country,  it  was  simply  England  with  a  difference." 

Something  of  this  is  in  the  thought  of  Matthew 
Arnold  when  he  speaks  of  George  Washington  as  if 

39 


40  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

he  were  really  an  Englishman  who  was  accidentally 
in  America.  We  Americans  should  be  made  to 
understand  that  we  had  appropriated  him  far  too 
exclusively.  To  understand  Washington,  we  must 
learn  to  think  of  him  as  a  good  model  of  the  Eng- 
lish County  Squire,  —  somewhat  above  the  average 
of  course,  but  a  type  very  common  and  not  in  the 
least  dazzling  to  the  properly  informed  Englishman. 
Less  than  thirty  years  ago  Bryce  wrote,  "The  Ameri- 
can people  is  the  English  people  modified  in  some 
directions  by  the  circumstances  of  its  colonial  life 
and  its  more  popular  government,  but  in  essentials 
the  same." 

In  1795  Timothy  Dwight  was  chosen  president  of 
Yale  College.  From  that  time  until  the  publication 
of  his  "  Travels "  in  four  volumes,  he  journeyed 
some  14,000  miles  in  New  England  and  New  York, 
knowing  that  eastern  country  probably  better  than 
any  other  man.  In  his  477th  letter  he  thus  speaks  of 
Boston:  "The  Bostonians,  almost  without  excep- 
tion, are  derived  from  one  country  and  a  single  stock. 
They  are  all  descendants  of  Englishmen,  and  of 
course  are  all  united  by  all  the  bonds  of  society: 
language,  religion,  government,  manners,  and  in- 
terests." *  Nearly  half  a  century  ago,  Godley  could 
speak  of  Boston  as  the  best  place  for  the  stranger 
to  see  national  characteristics  "  in  their  most  unmixed 
and  most  developed  state."  2 

1  Dwight's  "Travels,"  1821,  Vol.  I,  p.  506. 

2  "Letters  from  America,"  London,  1844,  Vol.  II,  p.  136. 


WHO   IS   THE   AMERICAN?  41 

Boston  was  then  puritan;  to-day  it  is  catholic. 
It  has  nearly  thirty  nationalities.  Yet  until  the  Civil 
War,  we  still  had  confident  descriptions  of  the 
American,  as  if  he  stood  sufficiently  apart  and  disen- 
gaged from  other  peoples  to  admit  of  characteriza- 
tion. The  Italians  discovered  us,  throngs  of  French, 
Dutch,  and  Germans  very  early  made  their  homes 
among  us.  There  was  yet  enough  in  common,  until 
the  middle  of  the  last  century,  to  make  the  question, 
What  is  the  American,  at  least  intelligible.  But 
what  meaning  can  it  have  to-day?  New  York  is 
already  the  chief  Jewish  city  of  the  world.  It  will 
very  soon  have  a  million  Hebrews.  They  come  with 
qualities  and  traditions  so  diverse  that  their  compe- 
tition among  themselves  (as  between  German  and 
Russian  Jews)  is  as  relentless  as  it  is  against  any 
other  class  of  the  community. 

Intelligent  enough  to  leave  petty  gambling  and 
drunkenness  to  the  Christians,  they  are  appropriating 
rapidly  the  very  forms  of  property  which  give  them 
the  strongest  grip  upon  the  destinies  of  the  city. 
Their  capacity  for  work,  their  thrift,  their  family  de- 
votion, their  temperance  and  consequent  low  death 
rate,  their  sacrifices  for  education,  their  passion  for 
individualism,  already  modify  our  life,  although  in 
our  eighty-five  millions  they  are  a  tiny  fraction  of  a 
million  and  a  half.  Christians  have  never  hesitated 
to  classify  and  characterize  the  Jews  as  specifically 
this  or  that.  But  as  we  know  them  better,  the 
characterization  becomes  blurred  and  uncertain. 


42  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

How  confidently  we  have  repeated  it !  The  Jew  is 
not  a  "producer."  "He  swaps  and  bargains  and 
exchanges,  but  he  shuns  the  processes  of  producing 
wealth."  It  is  very  slovenly  reasoning  to  shut  out 
these  trading  activities  from  "production";  but 
apart  from  this,  the  slightest  observation  would 
correct  this  easy  judgment.  One  of  our  great  in- 
dustries is  the  clothing  trade,  which  in  its  entire 
process  is  largely  in  the  hands  of  Jews,  as  other 
industries  are  in  part  on  their  purely  "productive" 
side. 

I  have  asked  a  great  many  people  what  one 
quality  could  surely  be  fixed  upon  the  American. 
I  have  a  long  list  of  answers,  but  the  one  that  heads 
the  list  in  point  of  frequency  is  that  the  American, 
above  all  other  peoples,  is  "adaptable."  It  is  of 
course  meant  by  this  that  the  young  American  is 
early  thrown  upon  his  own  resources ;  that  our  society 
has  such  mobility  and  range  of  opportunity  as  to 
create  the  capacity  for  self-adjustment  —  of  falling 
upon  the  feet  —  in  whatever  part  of  the  world  one 
alights.1  But  are  we  more  "adaptable"  than  the 
Jew?  With  centuries  of  savage  hounding  hither 
and  yon,  what  race  ever  had  such  occasion  and 
necessity  to  learn  adaptability  as  this  one?  Is 
there  any  delay  in  adjusting  themselves  to  our 

1  Professor  Leo  S.  Rowe,  returning  from  long  journeys  among 
the  South  American  peoples,  tells  me  that  the  American  is  handi- 
capped there  precisely  because  he  is  less  "adaptable"  than  the 
German. 


WHO   IS   THE   AMERICAN?  43 

economic  and  educational  opportunities?  If  the 
Jew  has  a  department  store  in  a  Southern  city,  he 
succeeds  partly  because  he  is  so  flexible  in  falling 
in  with  the  peculiarities  of  blacks  and  whites  alike. 
To  say  Miss  or  Mrs.  to  the  colored  purchaser  is  to 
get  her  trade.  I  hear  it  charged  against  the  Jew 
that  he  will  not  stay  upon  a  farm.  As  small  farming 
has  hitherto  been  done,  this  refusal  of  the  Jew  with- 
out capital  is  an  assured  sign  of  his  intelligence. 
There  is  already  indication  that  when  farming  is 
raised  to  its  proper  level ;  when  science  and  good  busi- 
ness methods  are  applied  to  it ;  when,  in  a  word,  it 
is  commercialized  and  thoroughly  worth  doing,  the 
Jew  will  be  at  the  front  in  this  work.  To  say  that 
this  people  loves  money,  is  sharp  at  a  trade,  has 
push,  is  aggressive,  is  merely  to  repeat  what  no  end  of 
foreigners  have  ascribed  to  Yankees  generally.  An 
Englishman  who  did  business  for  several  years  in 
this  country  between  1840  and  1850,  warns  his 
countrymen  against  the  Americans  in  these  words, 
"Let  him  gain  a  foothold  and  before  you  are  aware" 
of  it,  you  will  find  his  hand  laid  upon  all  you  possess, 
from  your  pocket  handkerchief  to  the  house  that ; 
covers  your  head."  1  A  friend,  who  has  published  a 
monograph  on  race  questions,  tells  me  there  is  one 
trait  that  he  is  sure  is  peculiar  to  Hebrews.  Their 
aggressiveness  has  the  unfailing  trait  of  "intellectual 
impudence."  Frechheit  is  a  fair  translation  of  this 
modified  "impudence,"  and  I  have  often  heard  in 

1  Brown's  "America." 


44  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

Germany  that  the  truest  mark  of  the  Jew  was  this 
same  Frechheit.  But  to  what  people  under  the  sun 
would  this  name  not  be  affixed,  if  they  were  as  per- 
sistent and  successful  in  playing  the  accepted  com- 
petitive game  as  are  the  Jews  ?  This  labelling  fares  ill, 
even  with  a  race  so  sharply  outlined  as  the  Hebrew. 
What,  then,  shall  be  said  of  the  American,  now 
that  nearly  fifty  nationalities  are  knitted  into  our 
national  texture?  In  great  areas  of  the  Northwest 
one  seems  to  be  in  Scandinavia,  as  large  parts  of 
several  cities  are  like  another  Leipzig.  We  have 
"little  Chinas"  and  "little  Polands."  In  Lowell, 
Massachusetts,  one  may  find  himself  in  a  Greece 
that  is  not  even  little.  We  have  a  hundred  "little 
Italys"  in  our  cities,  and  whole  villages  of  them  in 
the  South  and  West,  as  in  Worcester  he  may  find 
himself  in  Armenia.  As  for  Eastern  and  Southern 
Europeans,  they  are  so  in  evidence  in  industries  like 
iron  and  mining  that  an  American  laborer  seems 
foreign  and  out  of  place.  These  piebald  millions  are 
now  so  interwoven  with  all  that  we  are ;  at  so  many 
points  we  have  been  changed  by  their  presence,  that  to 
silhouette  the  American  becomes  yearly  more  baffling.1 

1  "  In  nineteen  of  the  Northern  States  of  our  Republic  the  num- 
ber of  the  foreign-born  and  their  immediate  descendants  exceeds 
the  number  of  the  native-born.  In  the  largest  cities  the  number 
is  two-thirds,  and  even  three-quarters.  There  are  more  Cohens 
than  Smiths  in  the  New  York  Directory.  Two-thirds  of  the  labor- 
ers in  our  factories  are  foreign-born  or  of  foreign  parentage.  New 
England  is  no  longer  puritan  but  foreign."  —  "Aliens  of  Ameri- 
cans," by  B.  Grose,  p.  236. 


WHO    IS    THE    AMERICAN?  45 

The  early  writers  have  no  misgivings.  In  the 
following  chapter  we  shall  see  above  twenty  confident 
traits  set  down  to  index  the  American  off  from  other 
nationalities.  Especially  after  the  Civil  War  this 
confidence  abates.  The  perplexities  become  too 
obvious.  The  railway  facilities  bring  the  visitor 
into  contact  with  too  many  kinds  of  Americans. 
In  1889,  I  met  a  German  correspondent  who  had 
been  four  times  to  the  United  States.  He  had  done 
high-class  work  for  what  was  then  thought  to  be  the 
ablest  continental  paper,  the  Cologne  Gazette.  He 
said  he  brought  back  from  his  first  journey  a  clearly 
conceived  image  of  the  American.  He  was  "sharp- 
visaged,  nervous,  lank,  and  restless."  1  After  the 
second  trip  this  group  of  adjectives  was  abandoned. 
He  saw  so  many  people  who  were  not  lank  or  nervous ; 
so  many  who  were  rotund  and  leisurely,  that  he  re- 
arranged his  classification,  but  still  with  confidence. 
After  the  third  trip  he  insisted  that  he  could  describe 
our  countrymen,  but  not  in  external  signs.  He  was 
driven  to  express  them  in  terms  of  character.  The 
American  was  resourceful,  inventive,  and  supreme 

1  "The  Yankee  is  a  tall,  gaunt,  yellow-faced,  hungry- looking 
dyspeptic.  He  is  generally  engaged  in  selling  some  very  odd 
article,  such  as  a  button-hook  and  a  cigarette-holder  combined, 
or  a  pair  of  socks  which  change  into  an  umbrella  when  you 
touch  a  hidden  spring." 

De  Nevers,  with  many  years'  experience  in  the  United  States, 
sums  up  his  conclusions  as  to  our  fundamental  characteristics  thus: 
"The  love  of  gain,  the  spirit  of  practical  achievement,  curiosity, 
a  rather  supercilious  exclusiveness  and  contempt  for  the  foreigner." 
—  "L'Ame  Americaine,"  Vol.  II,  p.  94. 


46  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

in  the  pursuit  of  material  ends.  "My  fourth  trip," 
he  said,  "has  knocked  out  the  final  attempt  with  the 
others.  I  have  thrown  them  all  over  like  a  lot  of 
rubbish.  I  now  don't  know  what  the  American  is, 
and  I  don't  believe  any  one  else  knows."  He  still 
thought  we  were  more  in  a  hurry  than  any  other  folk. 
Beyond  that,  he  was  certain  of  no  distinctive  differ- 
ence. On  this  remnant  of  confidence  there  is  now  a 
very  curious  comment.  So  competent  an  observer 
as  Professor  Miinsterberg,  eager  to  set  German 
opinion  right  on  America,  says  we  are  not  even  in  a 
hurry.  This  conclusion  has  great  surprises  for  us 
and  is  worth  quoting. 

"It  has  often  been  observed,  and  especially  remarked  on  by 
German  observers,  that  in  spite  of  his  extraordinary  tension, 
the  American  never  overdoes.  The  workingman  in  the  fac- 
tory, for  example,  seldom  perspires  at  his  work.  This  comes 
from  a  knowledge  of  how  to  work  so  as  in  the  end  to  get  out 
of  one's  self  the  greatest  possible  amount. 

"Very  much  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  admirable  way 
in  which  the  Americans  make  the  most  of  their  time.  Super- 
ficial observers  have  often  supposed  the  American  to  be 
always  in  a  hurry,  whereas  the  opposite  is  the  case.  The  man 
who  has  to  hurry  has  badly  disposed  of  his  time,  and,  there- 
fore, has  not  the  necessary  amount  to  finish  any  one  piece  of 
work.  The  American  is  never  in  a  hurry."  * 

1  More  recently  still,  as  good  an  observer  as  H.  W.  Horwill 
finds  us  conspicuous  for  our  careless,  leisurely  ways.  He  writes 
in  an  English  monthly  that  we  can  potter  and  dawdle  as  if  life 
were  a  continuous  holiday.  He  has  an  array  of  evidence  to  make 
good  his  point.  Think  of  the  time  spent  by  thousands  of  smaller 
business  men  in  the  innumerable  "orders"  and  societies  that  fill  our 


WHO    IS   THE    AMERICAN?  47 

Here  is  a  conflict  of  opinion  over  a  generalization 
that  has  been  world -wide  and  is  surely  among  our 
own  beliefs  about  ourselves.  This  scholar  who  has 
been  among  us  so  many  years  now  takes  from  us 
even  this  source  of  pride.  If  our  preeminence  as 
hustlers  is  to  be  put  in  question,  what,  pray,  is  left 
to  us? 

One  writer,  after  journeys  in  Canada  and  Aus- 
tralia, first  notes  that  the  American  can  only  be 
detected  by  his  speech.  He  finds  us  so  like  the 
Australians  that  were  it  not  for  our  "  intonation," 
he  should  think  himself  in  Victoria  or  New  South 
Wales.  He  then  travels  some  months  through  the 
West  and  South,  concluding  at  last  that  "there  are 
as  many  different  ways  of  speaking  in  various  parts 
of  the  United  States  as  there  are  in  England.  I 
sometimes  thought  myself  in  Yorkshire,  sometimes 
among  London  cockneys,  and  sometimes  among  the 
best  bred  people." 

American  "accent"  (a  word  covering  almost 
everything  except  accent)  has  played  a  great  rdle 

towns !  Study  our  sports  from  racing  to  baseball  at  which  vast  mul- 
titudes are  constantly  seen !  Even  when  we  are  hard-pushed  and 
ought  to  hurry,  he  thinks  us  very  awkward.  An  American  who  is  in 
a  hurry,  he  says,  "will  unhesitatingly  take  a  car  for  two  or  three 
blocks  rather  than  cover  the  same  distance  more  quickly  by  walking, 
just  as  he  will  wait  two  or  three  minutes  for  an  elevator  to  take 
him  down  a  flight  of  ten  steps,  or  will  bring  the  resources  of  his 
typewriter  to  bear  upon  a  postcard  —  which  could  be  more 
speedily  written  by  hand."  The  English  workingmen  brought 
here  by  Mr.  Mosley  were  constantly  expressing  their  surprise  that 
they  saw  so  little  of  this  high  pressure  work. 


48  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

in  marking  us  off  among  the  nations.  Yet  this 
traveller,  when  he  comes  to  judge  the  people  as  a 
whole,  is  in  despair.  "I  can,"  he  says,  "tell  how 
they  speak  in  any  one  of  a  dozen  sections,  but  not 
how  the  American  speaks." 

Our  trouble  is  scarcely  less  if  we  confine  ourselves 
to  the  American  woman  or  the  American  child. 
From  Liancourt  to  Bryce,  our  women  folk  have 
proved  a  shining  mark  for  flattering  characteriza- 
tion, but  the  young  girl  and  the  child  have  had  lam- 
pooning enough.  Nor  is  there  against  a  good  deal 
of  this  criticism  the  slightest  honest  defence.  That 
far  too  many  of  our  children  are  grievously  undis- 
ciplined, "lack  reverence,"  are  "loud  and  ill-man- 
nered," registers  the  most  obvious  fact.  Yet  it  is 
a  partial  one,  not  in  the  least  inclusive  of  the  Ameri- 
can child.1  Most  of  these  travellers  lived  in  hotels 
and  boarding-houses.  It  was  here  that  many  of 
them  took  their  impressions  of  youthful  deportment. 

1  "And  then  the  children  —  babies  I  should  say,  if  I  were  speak- 
ing of  English  bairns  of  their  age;  but,  seeing  that  they  are 
Americans,  I  hardly  dare  to  call  them  children.  The  actual  age 
of  these  perfectly  civilized  and  highly  educated  beings  may  be  from 
three  to  four.  One  will  often  find  five  or  six  such  seated  at  the 
long  dinner  table  of  the  hotel,  breakfasting  and  dining  with  their 
elders,  and  going  through  the  ceremony  with  all  the  gravity  and 
more  than  all  the  decorum  of  their  grandfathers."  —  ANTHONY 
TROLLOPE. 

Sixty  years  ago  an  English  merchant  who  was  "struck  dumb" 

by  the  precocity  of  the  American  child,  says  he  knew  of  one  that 

ran  away  from  home  when  only  five  months  old.     When  caught, 

\the  child  was  master  of  the  situation  —  "I  heard  they's  going  to 

call  me  Jotham  and  I  jes'  lit  out." 


WHO   IS   THE    AMERICAN?  49 

The  fidgety  and  noisy  were  of  course  most  in  evi- 
dence, and  thus  are  etched  into  many  an  unlovely 
picture  in  this  foreign  literature.  Writers  like 
Thackeray  and  Miss  Martineauv  who  see  the  child 
in  our  better  homes,  defend  us  most  handsomely. 
Thackeray  was  charmed  by  the  gay  and  playful 
familiarities  between  parent  and  child,  much  pre- 
ferring it  to  the  more  formal  relation  which  he 
recalls  in  England.  Miss  Martineau  devotes  a 
chapter  to  our  children.  She  is  careful  to  say  that 
she  finds  everywhere  "spoiled,  pert,  and  selfish 
children."  She  sees  that  many  are  given  too  much 
rein  and  left  without  discipline.  These  exceptions 
do  not,  however,  lessen  her  confidence  that  the 
freedom  and  familiarity  are  upon  the  whole  a  distinct 
gain  for  the  child  and  for  society.  What  moves  her 
most  to  this  conclusion  is  the  general  happiness  of 
American  children :  — 

"I  have  a  strong  suspicion  that  the  faults  of  temper  so  preva- 
lent where  parental  authority  is  strong  and  where  children  are 
made  as  insignificant  as  they  can  be  made,  and  the  excellence 
of  temper  in  America,  are  attributable  to  the  different  manage- 
ment of  childhood  in  the  one  article  of  freedom."  * 

Mental  alertness  she  also  thinks  has  surer  develop- 
ment. 

"If  I  had  at  home  gone  in  among  eighty  or  a  hundred  little 
people,  between  the  ages  of  eight  and  sixteen,  I  should  have 
extracted  little  more  than  'Yes,  ma'am,'  and  'No,  ma'am.' 
At  Baltimore,  a  dozen  boys  and  girls  at  a  time  crowded  around 

1  Vol.  Ill,  p.  163,  English  Ed.,  "Society  in  America." 

£ 


50  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

me,   questioning,   discussing,   speculating   in  a  way  which 
enchanted  me." 

About  the  American  woman  there  are  the  same 
cheerful  generalizations.  Many  chapters  are  de- 
voted to  her.  Early  writers  note  her  pruderies,  her 
frigid  reserve  before  miscellaneous  gallantries,  and 
her  "lack  of  temperament."  Ampere  and  Fanny 
Kemble  are  astonished  at  the  extreme  deference  that 
men  pay  her,  especially  on  the  street  and  in  all  public 
places.1  That  a  young  girl  can  travel  unattended 
from  State  to  State,  secure  from  insult  or  importunity, 
calls  out  admiring  comment  from  critics  of  every 
nationality.  Especially  since  the  habit  of  travelling 
has  developed  with  the  railway,  few  things  have 
more  frequent  mention  than  this  serene  young 
woman  journeying  alone  and  unalarmed  where  and 
when  she  will.  In  a  severely  critical  lecture  on  the 
United  States,  I  heard  the  historian  Von  Treitschke 
say  to  his  class  in  Berlin,  that  even  the  enemies  of 
America  saw  in  this  deference  to  the  unprotected 
woman  "a  most  hopeful  sign  of  civilization."  That 
she  would  be  unsafe  in  Europe,  he  thought,  marked, 
in  this  one  respect,  inferiority  in  the  European  social 
morals.  Even  if,  at  home  and  abroad,  we  have  not 

1  De  Tocqueville  says:  "It  has  often  been  remarked  that  in 
Europe  a  certain  degree  of  contempt  lurks  even  in  the  flattery 
which  men  lavish  upon  women;  although  a  European  frequently 
affects  to  be  the  slave  of  woman,  it  may  be  seen  that  he  never 
sincerely  thinks  her  his  equal.  In  the  United  States,  men  seldom 
compliment  women,  but  they  daily  show  how  much  they  esteem 
them."  Vol.  II,  p.  260. 


WHO   IS   THE   AMERICAN?  51 

rather  overworked  this  solitary  young  lady  en 
voyage,  she  is  too  individual  a  phenomenon  to  be  of 
much  use  to  us. 

Miss  Faithful  in  her  struggles  to  characterize  our 
girls  quotes  the  following : l  — 

"  The  most  fascinating  little  despot  in  the  world ;  an  oasis  of 
picturesque  unreasonableness  in  a  dreadful  desert  of  common 
sense." 

"Champagny —  glittering,  foamy,  bubbly,  sweet,  dry,  tart; 
in  a  word,  fizzy!  She  has  not  the  dreamy,  magical,  mur- 
mury  loveableness  of  the  Italian,  but  there  is  a  cosmopolitan 
combination  which  makes  her  a  most  attractive  coquette;  a 
sort  of  social  catechism —  full  of  answer  and  question." 

This  does  not  wholly  satisfy  her,  but  her  own  con- 
clusion is  as  tremulous  in  its  uncertainty  as  the  rest, 
save  in  its  good-will,  — 

"Miss  Alcott's  Joes  and  Dolly  Wards,  Bret  Harte's  Higgles 
and  M'liss,  and  Mr.  James's  Daisy  Miller, —  indeed,  I  feel 
more  and  more  bewildered  as  I  try  to  think  which  should  be 
taken  as  strictly  typical  —  save  the  one, 

"So  frankly  free, 
So  tender  and  so  good  to  see, 
Because  she  is  so  sweet." 

When  writer  after  writer  says  America  is  "the 
Paradise  for  Women,"  we  have  a  formula  that 
submits  to  closer  tests. 

I  was  once  on  a  Fall  River  boat  with  an  English 
clergyman  who  had  a  passion  for  sociological  sta- 
tistics. He  was  so.  struck  by  the  numbers  of  people 

1  "Three  Visits  to  America,"  p.  316. 


52  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

puffing  at  pipes,  cigarettes,  or  cigars  that  he  made 
conscientious  note  of  it,  telling  me  that  ninety  per 
cent  of  our  people  must  be  users  of  tobacco.  This 
appeared  excessive,  and  I  asked  him  where  he  got 
his  estimates.  He  said  he  had  counted  all  the 
people  smoking  and  not  smoking  in  the  large  space 
into  which  we  came  from  the  wharf.  He  was  much 
shaken,  when  I  told  him  that  all  his  reckoning  had 
been  made  in  the  boat's  smoking  room. 

America  as  the  "Paradise  for  Women"  is  an 
improvement  on  the  statistical  reflections  of  this 
clergyman,  but  it  too  has  to  be  challenged.  As 
compared  to  most  of  Europe,  burdens  are  here 
lighter  and  opportunities  more  open  for  women  who 
must  work  for  a  living.  But  there  are  some  millions 
of  wives  of  wage-earning  men  and  other  millions 
of  farmers'  wives.  Is  it  quite  a  Paradise  for  them? 
As  in  summer  months,  "There  is  nobody  in  town" 
to  leisurely  city  folk,  so  this  Paradise  is  confined  to  a 
relatively  small  section  of  the  community.  Even  for 
this  limited  portion,  it  is  a  "Paradise"  that  excites 
reflections.  To  have  the  fewest  responsibilities; 
to  have  the  children  cared  for  by  others;  to  have  a 
good  bank-account  and  the  consequent  leisure  to  do 
what  one  will,  usually  depicts  this  "Paradise."  It 
is  especially  and  always  to  have  a  good  deal  of  so- 
called  independence  and  freedom  from  the  narrower 
household  cares.  To  have  a  husband  willing  to 
slave  while  he  furnishes  the  cash  and  is  content  to 
stay  behind  if  he  is  not  wanted,  always  makes  the 


WHO   IS   THE   AMERICAN?  53 

heaven  of  the  American  woman  more  complete  in  the 
eyes  of  these  foreign  naturalists. 

It  was  left  for  a  French  scholar  to  say  the  final  and 
triumphant  word  upon  woman's  real  place  in  the 
United  States.  He  finds  the  propelling  force  even  of 
our  material  masteries  in  our  women.  In  France 
and  in  Europe  generally  the  woman  must,  he  says, 
suit  her  expenditure  to  her  husband's  earnings. 
Be  they  small  or  great,  this  duty  she  meets.  But  the 
glory  and  distinction  of  the  American  woman ;  that 
which  sets  her  apart  as  upon  a  pedestal  from  all  her 
kind  in  other  lands,  is  that  she  makes  her  husband 
earn  what  she  wishes  to  spend.  Petty  obstacles 
like  business  rivals  and  trade  conditions  are  not  to 
be  considered.  What  this  exigent  household  queen 
wants,  she  must  have  and  she  gets  it.  It  is  not 
primarily  the  man,  but  the  American  woman  who 
commands  the  business  initiative.  The  root  of  all 
our  commercial  greatness  is  her  ambition.  Because 
her  heart  is  set  on  those  first  necessities  —  the  luxu- 
ries and  superfluities  —  for  that  reason  the  railroads, 
stock-exchanges,  mills,  and  mines  are  driven  at 
white  heat.  It  is  man's  business  to  work  all  the 
wonders  of  our  business  world  in  order  that  wifely 
expectations  may  not  go  unsatisfied.  We  thus  get  at 
the  real  origin  of  the  much-noted  American  deference 
to  woman.  Fanny  Kemble  speaks  for  scores  of 
these  critics  when  she  expresses  her  surprise  that 
American  men  show  such  humility  toward  all 
women,  even  the  humblest.  The  commonest  ex- 


54  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

planation  of  this  attitude  is  the  relative  scarcity  of 
women  during  the  three  or  four  generations  when 
men  were  greatly  in  excess.  To  the  average  man 
seeking  a  mate  under  these  circumstances  politeness 
becomes  his  chief  asset.  I  have  heard  a  lady  much 
in  the  social  world  say  that  the  manners  of  boys 
varied  according  to  the  ratio  of  sexes  at  social  enter- 
tainments. "If  the  young  men  are  few  and  the 
girls  many,  the  boys  lose  their  grace  and  gallantry, 
and  most  of  them  act  like  boors."  This  Frenchman 
does  much  better.  To  him  women  evolve  not  only 
as  Queen  and  Dictator,  but  as  the  propelling  force 
behind  all  our  commercial  "initiative,"  "self-direc- 
tion," invention,  and  other  greatness.  This  torch- 
bearer  among  the  critics  did  not  offer  his  explanation 
as  a  compliment  to  our  women.  But  never  have 
they  received  such  flattery.  It  puts  man  as  the 
weaker  vessel  in  his  proper  place.  We  can  now 
understand  the  document  which  Emily  Faithful 
reproduces  from  the  early  dawn  of  the  "Woman's 
Movement."  She  vouches  for  this  speech  in  which 
Mrs.  Skinner,  two  generations  ago,  sets  us  right  as 
to  man's  place  in  the  social  order:  — 

"Miss  President,  feller  wimmen,  and  male  trash  generally, 
I  am  here  to-day  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  woman's  rights, 
recussing  her  wrongs,  and  cussing  the  men. 

"I  believe  sexes  were  created  perfectly  equal,  with  the 
woman  a  little  more  equal  than  the  man. 

"I  believe  that  the  world  to-day  would  be  happier  if  man 
never  existed. 


WHO   IS   THE    AMERICAN?  55 

"As  a  success  man  is  a  failure,  and  I  bless  my  stars  my 
mother  was  a  woman.  (Applause.) 

"I  not  only  maintain  those  principles,  but  maintain  a  shift- 
less husband  besides. 

"They  say  man  was  created  first — Well,  s'pose  he  was. 
Ain't  first  experiments  always  failures? 

"The  only  decent  thing  about  man  was  a  rib,  and  that 
went  to  make  something  better.  (Applause.) 

"And  they  throw  into  our  faces  about  taking  an  apple. 
I'll  bet  five  dollars  that  Adam  boosted  her  up  the  tree,  and 
only  gave  her  the  core. 

"And  what  did  he  do  when  he  was  found  out?  True  to 
his  masculine  instincts  he  sneaked  behind  Eve,  and  said, 
"Twan't  me;  'twas  her,'  and  woman  had  to  father  everything, 
and  mother  it  too. 

"What  we  want  is  the  ballot,  and  the  ballot  we're  bound  to 
have,  if  we  have  to  let  down  our  back  hair,  and  swim  in  a  sea 
of  gore." 

Another  phase  of  this  topic  troubles  our  critics. 
Who  is  the  "good,"  who  is  the  "bad"  American? 
To  stiff  conservatives,  especially  if  they  held  the 
offices  —  the  real  American  was  always  one  who 
accepted  rather  slavishly  the  party  platform.  Carlier 
was  thinking  of  our  politics  when  he  said,  "The  bad 
American  is  usually  the  best  American."  To  show 
independence  or  to  stand  for  some  larger  policy 
has  ever  brought  out  the  reproach  of  being  "un- 
American."  We  probably  did  not  have  five  greater 
or  more  useful  men  in  the  half  century  that  followed 
the  Revolution  than  the  reticent,  educated,  and 
resourceful  young  Swiss  who  landed  here  in  1790, 
Albert  Gallatin.  Though  an  aristocrat  by  birth, 


56  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

with  easy  honors  awaiting  him  at  home,  he  turned 
his  back  upon  them  because  of  republican  sym- 
pathies that  came  to  him  like  a  religious  conversion. 
The  word  democrat  has  no  nobler  sense  than 
that  which  Gallatin  put  into  every  stroke  of  his  great 
public  service  in  this  country.  Yet  throughout  his 
most  active  career,  he  had  to  submit  to  this  taunt  of 
being  a  bad  American.  Men  with  very  proud  names 
were  guilty  of  this  ungenerous  flouting.  In  our 
own  day  another  splendid  figure  suffered  from  the 
same  unhandsome  conduct.  Carl  Schurz  was  show- 
ered with  honors  whenever  principle  allowed  him 
to  "stand  pat,"  but  at  any  brave  departure  he  was 
told  that  he  was  "no  true  American."  When  he 
was  fighting  for  some  honor  and  humanity  toward 
the  Indians;  when  he  tried  to  temper  some  of  the 
blundering  excesses  of  our  reconstruction  methods, 
as  well  as  during  his  long  and  heroic  struggle  for 
the  elementary  decencies  of  Civil  Service  Reform, 
Mr.  Schurz  had  to  meet  this  coarse  upbraiding  of 
being  un-American.  He  probably  was  never  so 
genuinely  an  American  as  when  that  term  was  most 
hotly  denied  him,  and  this  was  as  certainly  true  of 
Gallatin.  To  fight  for  the  next  step  that  constitutes 
progress  should  best  define  the  American  spirit. 
It  should  be  the  essence  of  this  spirit  to  expand  the 
conditions  of  political  and  social  growth.  Yet 
those  who  have  struck  out  most  resolutely  for  this 
enlargement  have  had  to  take  the  anathema  —  "no 
true  American." 


WHO   IS   THE   AMERICAN?  57 

The  first  speech  I  heard  in  Massachusetts  in  favor 
of  the  Australian  ballot  was  attacked  by  a  well-known 
jurist  as  being  un-American  and  therefore  to  be 
condemned.  In  the  West,  during  the  stormy  dis- 
cussions over  free  silver  and  the  gold  standard,  I 
attended  many  meetings.  None  of  the  peppery 
phrases  so  stuck  in  my  mind  as  those  that  charged 
the  friends  of  the  "single  standard"  with  being  un- 
American.  I  can  still  see  a  trembling  and  scornful 
finger  pointing  at  some  of  us  who  had  asked  ques- 
tions. The  speaker  stirred  all  hearts  by  comparing 
the  doubters  to  Judas.  As  he  had  bartered  his 
soul,  so  had  the  gold  men  bartered  theirs.  "The 
soul  of  the  true  American  has  departed  from  them 
forever."  Even  at  a  meeting  for  the  discussion  of 
immigration,  as  good  an  American  as  I  have  ever 
known  was  angrily  denied  the  name,  because  he 
steadfastly  opposed  plans  for  restricting  immigrants. 

There  is  nothing  more  hopeful  at  the  present 
moment  in  our  country  than  the  spirit  at  work  in 
our  new  forestry  policy.  It  is,  fundamentally,  the 
same  use  of  government  powers  to  protect  large  and 
general  interests,  as  against  narrow  and  immediate 
private  interests  that  have  come  into  sharp  conflict 
with  public  welfare.  Yet  I  have  heard  the  policy 
condemned  with  extreme  venom  because  it  was  not 
the  American  way  of  doing  things.  The  most 
dangerous  kind  of  ignorance  can  hide  behind  this 
name.  A  New  Hampshire  farmer  and  dairyman, 
irritated  by  the  standard  of  cleanliness  which  the 


58  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

milk  inspector  submitted  to  him,  burst  out  in  reply, 
"Yes,  I've  read  a  good  deal  in  the  agricultural 
paper  about  this  foolishness,  but  I'm  an  American 
and  I  propose  to  stay  on  bein'  an  American."  In 
this  sorry  instance,  to  hold  with  sulky  tenacity  to 
the  beaten  path  becomes  the  definition  of  this  proud 
title.  Few  really  illustrious  names  have  wholly 
escaped  the  epithet  —  un-American.  Washington 
and  Hamilton  lost  all  claim  to  it  at  the  hands  of  the 
Jeffersonian  pamphleteers.  Nor  did  Lincoln  go 
unscathed  by  Northern  copperheads.  When  com- 
pelled to  suspend  habeas  corpus  in  the  heaviest 
days  of  1863,  the  hiss  of  un- Americanism  was  heard 
on  every  hand.  The  most  heroic  moments  in  our 
history  are  precisely  those  in  which  men  have  dared 
to  stand  pluckily  by  some  cause  against  which 
popular  fury  had  temporarily  turned.  Young 
Quincy's  defence  of  Captain  Preston  of  "the  Boston 
Massacre"  was  a  splendid  bit  of  gallantry.  The 
frenzy  against  Preston  in  the  community  burned  so 
high  that  the  elder  Quincy  wrote  indignantly  to  his 
son:  "My  God  !  Is  it  possible?  I  will  not  believe 
it."  The  son  answered  that  it  was  in  his  oath  to  aid 
those  charged  with  crime,  the  guilt  of  which  was  not 
yet  proved.  To  the  angry  reproach  that  his  career 
would  be  ruined,  he  answered :  "I  never  harbored  the 
expectation,  nor  any  great  desire,  that  all  men  should 
speak  well  of  me.  To  inquire  my  duty  and  to  do  it, 
is  my  aim."  Months  had  not  passed  before  it 
became  plain  that  an  atrocious  injustice  would  have 


WHO    IS   THE   AMERICAN?  59 

been  committed  to  refuse  this  defence.  Yet  for 
moral  intrepidity  that  adds  lustre  to  those  days  and 
to  all  days,  this  young  man  was  pronounced  a  bad 
and  faithless  American. 

In  the  winter  of  1882,  when  James  Russell  Lowell 
was  our  Minister  to  England,  he  had  to  face  delicate 
matters  growing  out  of  the  "Coercion  Act"  against 
Ireland.  Two  Secretaries  of  State  (Evarts  and 
Elaine)  had  successively  paid  tribute  to  Mr.  Lowell's 
"sagacity,  prudence,  and  fairness."  Yet  in  and 
out  of  Congress  the  storm  raged  against  him.  At 
a  great  meeting  in  New  York,  "sickening  syco- 
phancy" and  "Apostate  to  true  Americanism"  were 
among  the  pretty  compliments  paid  to  him. 

As  it  has  been  in  the  past,  so  in  the  future  this 
high  test  of  moral  courage  will  remain  to  try  men's 
souls.  Politics  as  well  as  religion  tends  to  harden 
into  institutional  and  dogmatic  forms.  To  challenge 
these ;  to  break  the  enclosing  crust  so  far  as  to  give 
way  for  the  inner  life  and  growth,  will  ask  of  men 
to  the  end  of  time  this  same  hardihood.  The  best 
Americans  have  ever  been  and  will  continue  to  be 
those  who,  while  standing  for  social  stability  and 
order,  dare  to  stand  also  for  the  changes  that  widen 
into  social  progress. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OUR  TALENT  FOR  BRAGGING 

I  APPROACH  this  chapter  with  misgivings.  When 
using  the  essential  portions  of  it  several  times  as  a 
lecture,  I  have  seen  individuals  leave  the  hall  in  a 
state  of  unmistakable  displeasure.  It  was  once 
given  as  the  first  of  a  series  on  the  general  subject 
with  which  these  chapters  deal.  A  protest  was  made 
to  those  having  the  lectures  in  charge  that  their 
continuance  ought  not  to  be  permitted.  As  this 
was  impracticable,  a  good  many  people  took  the 
question  of  continuing  into  their  own  hands  and 
stayed  away.  It  was  maintained  that  "no  true 
American  would  talk  so  about  his  country."  As  this 
lecture  was  immediately  followed  by  one  on  the 
Sensitiveness  of  the  American,1  it  brought  a  humor- 
ous confirmation  which  somewhat  softened  the 
asperities  of  the  situation. 

What  was  least  tolerable  to  this  wounded  patriot- 
ism was  an  itemized  comparison  between  some  of 
our  prancing  Fourth  of  July  oratory  from  eminent 
men  and  the  broad  caricatures  of  Dickens.  In  the 

»  Chapter  VI. 
60 


OUR  TALENT   FOR   BRAGGING  6 1 

"American  Notes"  and  "Martin  Chuzzlewit"  our 
genius  for  self-laudation  is  travestied  by  this  master 
with  a  free  hand.  Yet  in  our  own  oratorical  zone, 
we  can  find  the  literary  equivalents  of  Dickens's 
choicest  specimens.  One  is  honestly  disconcerted 
as  to  which  is  the  parody.  When  a  senator  can  say 
at  a  banquet  given  by  his  constituents,  that  "America 
as  a  nation  has  now  passed  through  the  fiery  furnace 
of  doubt  and  obloquy,  convincing  the  most  ignorant 
of  her  foes  and  the  most  envious  of  her  would-be 
rivals  that  our  Republic  stands  at  last  as  unstained 
in  her  matchless  record  as  she  is  superior  in  all  the 
higher  attainments  of  a  true  moral  and  spiritual 
civilization,"  we  think  instinctively  of  the  passages 
in  "Martin  Chuzzlewit."  Does  the  most  riotous 
burlesque  of  Dickens  much  outdo  this  senatorial 
outburst  ? 

It  is  of  course  true  that  among  nations  we  do 
not  hold  a  monopoly  of  gasconade.  It  is  very 
probable  that  the  fete-day  literature  of  other  nations 
would  furnish  rodomontade  equal  to  our  best.  That 
would  only  enlarge  the  geographical  area  of  the 
plague.  There  are,  moreover,  so  many  ways  of 
bragging.  It  may  be  stentorian  and  grandiloquent 
like  that  of  Victor  Hugo.  It  may  be  the  sheer  bluster 
of  a  Colonel  Chick,  "What  is  America  for  but  to 
reform  the  world?"  It  may  appear  in  the  ineffable 
strut  of  the  Prussian  lieutenant,  or  in  the  unvoiced 
but  unmistakable  assumption  of  superiority  that  the 
world  has  very  generally  associated  with  the  British. 


62  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

This  has  often  a  most  naive  and  unabashed  state- 
ment, as  when  Alexander  Mackay  says : l  — 

"England  has  her  fixed  position  in  the  family  of  nations, 
and  at  the  head  of  civilization  —  a  position  which  she  has  long 
occupied,  and  from  which  it  will  be  some  time  ere  she  is  driven. 
We  care  not,  therefore,  what  the  foreigner  says  or  thinks  of  us. 
He  may  look  or  express  contempt  as  he  walks  our  streets,  or 
frequents  our  public  places.  His  praise  cannot  exalt,  nor  can 
his  contempt  debase  us,  as  a  people." 

This  special  form  of  bragging  is  attributed  to  us :  — 

"Other  nations  boast  of  what  they  are  or  have  been,  but 
the  true  citizen  of  the  United  States  exalts  his  head  to  the  skies 
in  the  contemplation  of  what  the  grandeur  of  his  country  is 
going  to  be.  Others  claim  respect  and  honor  because  of  the 
things  done  by  a  long  line  of  ancestors;  an  American  glories 
in  the  achievements  of  a  distant  posterity. 

"If  an  English  traveller  complains  of  their  inns  and  hints 
his  dislike  to  sleeping  four  in  a  bed,  he  is  first  denounced  as  a 
calumniator  and  then  told  to  wait  a  hundred  years  and  see 
the  superiority  of  American  inns  to  British."  2 

Even  that  learned  French  publicist,  M.  Chevalier, 
who  is  very  friendly,  cannot  help  warning  us  against 

1  "The  Western  World,"  p.  285. 

Bryce  says,  "An  impartially  rigorous  censor  from  some  other 
planet  might  say  of  the  Americans  that  they  are  at  this  moment  less 
priggishly  supercilious  than  the  Germans,  less  restlessly  pretentious 
than  the  French,  less  pharisaically  self-satisfied  than  the  English." 
-  Vol.  II,  p.  635. 

2  This  exact  comment  De  Amicis  makes  on  the  people  as  he 
journeys  about  Holland,  "They  are  always  talking  of  what  they 
are  going  to  do  and  almost  never  of  what  they  have  done,"  but, 
curiously    enough,    he    interprets  this  in   terms  of  humility.  — 
"  La  Hollande,"  p.  96. 


MRS.  TROL-LOPE 
Author  of  "  The  Domestic  Manners  of  the  Americans  " 


OUR  TALENT  FOR  BRAGGING         63 

all  illusions  about  the  real  thing  in  matters  of  na- 
tional preeminence.     He  says :  — 

"It  is  because  France  is  the  heart  of  the  world;  the  affairs 
of  France  interest  all ;  the  cause  which  she  espouses  is  not  that 
of  a  selfish  ambition,  but  that  of  civilization.  When  France 
speaks,  she  is  listened  to,  because  she  speaks  not  her  own  feel- 
ings merely,  but  those  of  the  human  race.  When  she  acts, 
her  example  is  followed,  because  she  does  what  all  desire  to 
do."  1 

Another  Frenchman  is  less  considerate  of  our 
sensibilities  when  he  says  that  "French  civilization 
is  so  above  and  apart  from  that  of  all  other  peoples, 
that  his  countrymen  need  not  shrink  from  encourag- 
ing a  people  like  those  in  the  United  States  in  their 
ambition  to  imitate  the  glories  of  France."  This 
has  a  loftiness  with  which  Victor  Hugo  has  made  the 
world  familiar. 

It  will  lessen  the  smart,  as  we  turn  for  our  punish- 
ment, to  remember  these  various  eruptions  of  self- 
laudation. 

That  our  special  variety  of  braggadocio  is  ex- 
tremely offensive  to  all  sorts  of  foreigners,  there  is 

1  D'Almbert,  in  his  "  Flaneries,"  gives  one  special  reason  why 
the  French  should  travel:  Until  they  have  looked  in  upon  several 
nations  lying  in  outer  darkness,  there  is  no  way  to  measure  the 
heights  of  French  civilization.  "  Just  cross  the  frontier  and  it  at 
once  begins  to  dawn  upon  us  how  unrivalled  we  stand  in  all  the 
tests  of  moral  and  spiritual  refinement.  Our  morals  are  probes, 
elegantes  et  faciles,  and  our  character,  chivalrous,  loyal,  and  with- 
out selfishness.  Yet,  we  must  travel,  travel,  especially  to  the 
United  States,  only  to  see  how  wisely  the  good  God  has  given  the 
finest  country  to  the  best  of  nations  —  France." 


64  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

not  the  slightest  doubt.  De  Nevers  thinks  it  rather 
odious  to  assume  that  the  Almighty  is  especially  and 
exclusively  committed  on  the  side  of  American  pres- 
tige. Among  his  illustrations,  he  quotes  our  his- 
torian Bancroft,  "The  American  democracy  follows 
its  ascending  march,  uniform,  majestic  as  the  laws 
of  being,  sure  of  itself  as  the  decrees  of  Eternity." 
Another  finds  it  extremely  distasteful  that  the 
Americans,  above  all  peoples,  cannot  leave  home 
for  another  country  without  "carrying  their  whole 
national  belongings  with  them." 

"From  the  moment  they  set  foot  on  foreign  soil,  they  begin 
to  compare  things  with  what  they  left  behind  them.  This  is 
intelligent  and  unavoidable,  but  the  American  is  never  at  rest 
until  he  has  made  as  many  benighted  'foreigners'  as  possible 
understand  and  admit  that  their  civilization  and  ways  of  life 
are  inferior.  Hotels,  railways,  checking  baggage,  the  size  of 
farms,  the  telephone,  the  methods  of  despatching  business,  — 
one  and  all  have  to  be  '  rubbed  into  you,'  to  use  their  vernacu- 
lar. Americans  with  any  breeding,  of  course,  do  not  dp  this, 
but  it  is  the  curse  of  the  country  that  it  has  so  vast  an  army 
constantly  on  the  march  that  is  never  happy  unless  bragging 
about  some  superiority."  * 

This  opinion  represents  the  settled  conviction  of 

1  A  well-known  writer  among  our  American  women  just  returns 
from  Europe  with  this  appealing  observation  to  her  sisters  during 
their  stay  abroad:  "A  little  more  repose,  a  little  more  appreciation 
of  what  is  not  American,  a  little  more  modesty  about  vaunting  one's 
own  in  public,  a  little  less  criticism  of  other  countries,  a  little 
more  attention  to  the  manner  of  expression  and  the  timbre  of 
voice  —  these  are  some  of  the  things  which  would  improve  the 
American  woman  traveller,  and  yet  leave  her,  as  she  should  be, 
distinctly  American." 


OUR   TALENT   FOR   BRAGGING  65 

all  our  earlier  critics  and  of  some  recent  ones  from 
whatever  country  they  come.  They  find  in  this 
aggressive  self-complacency  the  least  tolerable  of 
our  qualities.  About  no  other  one  trait  is  the  una- 
nimity more  complete.  There  would  be  some  escape, 
if  the  charge  were  brought  by  this  or  that  nationality 
from  which  we  widely  differed,  or  if  it  came  from  the 
over-critical  and  ill-disposed  alone.  It  is  the  very 
gravity  of  the  accusation,  that  it  comes  from  those 
most  friendly  to  us  and  from  those  who  have  studied 
us  with  most  open  minds.  The  early  French  writers 
were  passionately  on  our  side  and  against  the 
aspersions  of  the  English  critics  of  America.  Yet 
the  most  cordial  of  these  are  annoyed  by  the  in- 
cessant exercise  of  this  unhappy  talent.  None  of 
the  French  brought  a  more  generous  and  insistent 
sympathy  than  De  Tocqueville.  No  one  gave  surer 
proofs  of  that  sympathy  than  by  the  way  in  which 
he  philosophizes  upon  and  excuses  crudities  and 
annoyances  necessarily  incidental  to  travel  and 
investigation  seventy-five  years  ago  in  this  country. 
Yet  about  our  self-vaunting,  he  had  this  passage :  — 

"For  the  last  fifty  years,  no  pains  have  been  spared  to  con- 
vince the  people  of  the  United  States  that  they  are  the  only 
religious,  enlightened,  and  free  people.  They  perceive  that, 
for  the  present,  their  own  democratic  institutions  prosper, 
whilst  those  of  other  countries  fail;  hence  they  conceive  a 
high  opinion  of  their  inferiority,  and  are  not  very  remote  from 
believing  themselves  to  be  a  distinct  species  of  mankind."  1 

1  "Democracy  in  America,"  Vol.  I,  p.  506. 
Another  passage  indicates  a  type  which  we  hope  was  limited 
F 


66  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

De  Tocqueville's  friend,  the  Academician  Ampere, 
has  far  less  insight,  but  through  his  long  journey  is 
so  gallantly  polite  and  so  obstinately  the  gentleman 
in  every  mishap,  that  we  quite  fall  in  love  with  him. 
His  good-will  is  exhaustless,  but  he  suffers  from 
hearing,  day  in  and  day  out,  that  Europe  is  to  be 
pitied  for  the  lack  of  those  perfections  which  blossom 
in  the  institutions  and  the  character  of  Americans. 
"They  are  really  very  much  hurt  if  you  put  these 
superiorities  in  question." 

Abdy,  who  was  here  in  1833-1834,  has  many 
comments  on  this  characteristic.  He  is  led  to 
examine  our  school  books,  giving  from  Hart's 
"Geographical  Exercises"  this  sample:  — 

"Knowing  that  Asia,"  says  the  author,  "is  sunk  in  igno- 
rance and  gross  superstition,  the  young  reader  will  at  once 
discover  the  cause  of  our  moral  superiority  over  the  dull 
Asiatics,  as  well  as  the  great  mass  of  more  enlightened  neighbors 
of  the  European  part  of  the  Eastern  continent.  It  need  scarcely 
be  repeated,  that  it  is  owing  to  the  influence  of  the  press  shed- 
ding its  rays  of  knowledge  over  the  minds  of  a  free  people."  l 

and  exceptional:  "I  have  often  remarked  in  the  United  States 
that  it  is  not  easy  to  make  a  man  understand  that  his  presence  may 
be  dispensed  with;  hints  will  not  always  suffice  to  shake  him  off. 
I  contradict  an  American  at  every  word  he  says,  to  show  him  that 
his  conversation  bores  me:  I  preserve  a  dogged  silence,  and  he 
thinks  I  am  meditating  deeply  on  the  truths  which  he  is  uttering; 
at  last,  I  rush  from  his  company,  and  he  supposes  that  some  urgent 
business  hurries  me  elsewhere.  This  man  will  never  understand 
that  he  wearies  me  to  death,  unless  I  tell  him  so,  and  the  only  way 
to  get  rid  of  him  is  to  make  him  my  enemy  for  life."  —  Vol.  II, 
p.  210. 

1  "  Journal  of  a  Residence  and  Tour  in  the  United  States." 


OUR    TALENT   FOR    BRAGGING  67 

Abdy  has  a  theory  that  bragging  is  necessarily  de- 
veloped by  the  shifts  of  the  demagogue  in  a  democ- 
racy and  "the  adulation  of  the  press."  He  quotes 
from  the  speech  of  President  Van  Buren  before  the 
New  York  Convention  as  follows :  — 

"It  was  the  boast  and  the  pride  and  the  security  of  the 
American  nation,  that  she  had  in  her  bosom  a  body  of  men 
who,  for  sobriety,  integrity,  industry,  and  patriotism,  were 
unequalled  by  the  cultivators  of  the  earth  in  any  part  of  the 
known  world;  nay,  more, —  to  compare  them  with  men  of 
similar  pursuits  in  other  countries,  was  to  degrade  them." 

This  has  its  match  in  a  quotation  from  Mrs. 
Trollope : '  - 

"Mr.  Everett,  in  a  recent  Fourth  of  July  oration,  speaks 
thus:  'We  are  authorized  to  assert  that  the  era  of  our  inde- 
pendence dates  the  establishment  of  the  only  perfect  organiza- 
tion of  government.'  Again,  'Our  government  is  in  its  theory 
perfect,  and  in  its  operation  it  is  perfect  also.  Thus  we  have 
solved  the  great  problem  in  human  affairs.'  " 

That  we  have  not  wholly  recovered,  is  seen  in  a 
few  lines  from  the  reported  speech  recently  given  by 
one  of  our  most  honored  governors.  It  was  spoken 
in  an  Eastern  State. 

"In  the  depth  and  breadth  of  character,  in  the  volume  of 
hope  and  ambition,  in  the  universality  of  knowledge,  in  rever- 
ence for  law  and  order,  in  the  beauty  and  sanctity  of  our 
homes,  in  sobriety,  in  the  respect  for  the  rights  of  others,  in 
recognition  of  the  duties  of  citizenship,  and  in  the  ease  and 
honor  with  which  we  tread  the  myriad  paths  leading  from 
rank  to  rank  in  life,  our  people  surpass  all  their  fellow-men." 

1  p.  163. 


68  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

When  Mr.  Bryce  was  at  work  upon  his  first  edi- 
tion, he  quoted  the  following  passage  from  an  address 
before  a  well-known  literary  association  by  one  of 
our  eminent  citizens,  who  was  speaking  of  the 
influence  which  the  American  principles  of  liberty, 
as  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
were  exciting  in  the  world :  — 

"They  have  given  political  freedom  to  America  and  France, 
unity  and  nationality  to  Germany  and  Italy,  emancipated  the 
Russian  serf,  relieved  Prussia  and  Hungary  from  feudal  ten- 
ures, and  will  in  time  free  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  also."  l 

Thus  the  entire  planet  is  saved  by  a  few  strokes  of 
an  American  pen.  Mr.  Bryce  evidently  thinks  this 
extravagant,  for  he  adds :  — 

"I  have  often  asked  Americans  wherein  they  consider  their 
freedom  superior  to  that  of  the  English,  but  have  never  found 
them  able  to  indicate  a  single  point  in  which  the  individual 
man  is  worse  off  in  England  as  regards  either  his  private  civil 
rights  or  his  political  rights  or  his  general  liberty  of  doing  and 
thinking  as  he  pleases." 

I  submit  again  that  some  of  the  above  citations 
hold  their  own  pretty  evenly  with  the  caricatures  of 
Charles  Dickens.  If  placed  side  by  side  and  hon- 
estly compared,  the  reader  will  be  much  in  doubt 
as  to  which  is  the  burlesque.  Most  of  these  soaring 
eulogies  are  themselves  caricatures.  No  such  dizzy 
heights  of  cultural  attainment  have  been  yet 
reached  by  us.  I  was  told  that  the  final  passage 

1  "American  Commonwealth,"  Vol.  II,  p.  635. 


OUR   TALENT  FOR   BRAGGING  69 

quoted  from  the  governor's  speech  received  "en- 
thusiastic applause  from  the  entire  audience."  l 

I  have  purposely  omitted  from  this  heart-searching 
the  whole  list  of  ill-tempered  and  grouty  opinions 
from  critics  who  too  obviously  did  not  like  us.  One 
of  these  says  he  came  to  stay  a  year,  but  had  the 
misfortune  to  spend  his  first  two  weeks  at  the  Chicago 
Exposition.  On  his  first  morning  at  the  Fair,  he 
hears  an  official  say,  "I  guess  this  show  will  make 
them  Europeans  feel  silly."  "  Why  silly?  "  asks  the 
visitor.  "You  don't  suppose  they  ever  saw  anything 
like  this,  do  you?"  When  the  unhappy  stranger 
disagrees,  he  is  assured  by  the  official  that  it  only 
proves  that  foreigners  can't  even  tell  a  big  thing 
when  they  see  it. 

It  was  the  habit  of  this  observer  to  ask  a  great 
many  questions,  but  he  says  he  invariably  got  brag 
instead  of  information,  until,  unable  to  stand  it 
further,  he  took  a  ticket  for  home,  resolved  never  to 
set  foot  in  this  country  again.  This  is  petulance  and 
need  not  much  annoy  us.  Our  wincing  comes 
when  wholly  cordial  and  large-minded  men  like 
Richard  Cobden  have  to  speak  of  the  "vulgar  ex- 
pression of  our  self-sufficiency,"  or  when  a  man  of 

1  There  was  a  large  gathering  chiefly  of  leading  business  men, 
many  of  them  university  graduates.  They  were  being  gravely  and 
unctuously  assured  that  we  "surpass  all  our  fellow-men"  —  in 
what?  In  "sobriety,"  in  "depth  and  breadth  of  character,"  "in 
the  universality  of  knowledge,"  "in  reverence  for  law  and  order," 
"in  respect  for  the  rights  of  others,"  "in  recognition  of  the  duties 
of  citizenship,"  etc.  This  cosmic  preeminence  is  not  here  measured 


70  AS   OTHERS    SEE    US 

science  full  of  gentle  courtesies  like  Sir  Charles 
Lyell  turns  aside  from  men  and  occasions  in  order 
to  avoid  "what  one  can  stand  now  and  then,  but 
not  everywhere  and  all  the  time."  It  is  this  type 
of  man  who  ofteHvasks  why  we  should  have  this 
ungracious  habit.  Why  should  it  be  so  conspicuous  ? 
Is  it  from  a  permanent  disease  of  "congenital  emi- 
nence"? Is  it  because  the  people  of  the  United 
States  began  by  accepting  a  theory  of  equality 
which  they  soon  saw  could  not  possibly  be  applied 
to  actual  life  ?  Emerson  thought  the  lack  of  virtues 
could  be  detected  in  any  man  who  loudly  talked  about 
them.  Is  it  because  at  heart  the  inhabitants  of  the 
States  really  doubt  their  greatness  that  they  so 
clamorously  insist  upon  it?  Is  it  because  they 
themselves  see  such  a  gap  between  their  formulated 
democratic  ideals  and  their  actual  practices  that 
they  "put  on  an  extra  strut  of  self-assertion  before 
strangers"?  Another  tries  to  find  out  "whether  the 
Yankees  brag  among  themselves  as  they  do  before 
strangers."  He  finds  the  evidence  on  this  point  very 
perplexing.  On  the  one  hand,  he  is  assured  that 
the  natives  have  an  inexhaustible  delight  in  abusing 
their  own  country  and  its  institutions,  and  will  even 
entertain  a  foreigner  with  tales  of  political  and  other 
self-abasement  beyond  any  pitch  of  defamation  that 
the  most  bitter  outsider  ever  conceived.1  Against 

by  business  and  commercial  tests,  to  which  we  have  been  much 
accustomed.  It  is  measured  by  the  very  highest  spiritual  values 
that  human  beings  attain  in  this  world. 

1  There  is  much  truth  in  a  remark  of  Mr.  Bryce  to  the  effect 


OUR   TALENT   FOR    BRAGGING  71 

this  he  is  told  that  Americans  are  bored  by  this 
national  habit  more  even  than  are  strangers.  Two 
"men  of  distinction"  (probably  both  from  the  East) 
tell  him  that  as  you  travel  West,  the  note  of  bragga- 
docio steadily  rises  until  you  reach  the  Pacific  coast, 
where  it  would  be  deafening  if  your  approach  were 
not  so  gradual,  as  the  big  trees  in  the  Yosemite 
are  dwarfed  because,  on  the  route  thither,  you  see 
so  many  larger  and  larger  trees  that  the  giant  pines 
do  not  finally  much  surprise  you.  But  this  inquirer 
agrees  that  the  "riot  of  self-flattery  does  culminate 
in  the  far  West,"  its  commonest  form  being  that 
everything,  from  scenery  to  general  culture,  is  the 
sublimest  or  the  biggest  in  the  universe.  He  notes 
down  some  forty  objects  or  achievements  that  are 
indisputably  "the  finest  in  the  entire  world."  G.  W. 
Steevens  writes  of  his  own  discipline  in  these  words :  — 

" '  I  am  now,  Sir,  about  to  show  you  my  creamery.  It  is  not 
yet  finished,  but  when  it  is  I  anticipate  that  it  will  be  the  most 
complete  and  the  best  appointed,'  —  I  shuddered,  for  I  knew 
instinctively  what  was  coming —  'in  the  world.'  Shall  I  ever 
escape  this  tyranny  of  the  biggest  thing  in  the  world?"  l 

that,  worse  still  than  any  bragging  is  the  habit  of  an  occasional 
American  of  finding  delight  before  strangers  in  decrying  his  own 
country. 

1  "  Land  of  the  Dollar,"  p.  167. 

Professor  Lamprecht  recently  writes,  "  Denver  boasts  of  more 
buildings  costing  over  $200,000  to  erect  than  any  other  city  of  its 
age  and  size  in  America."  After  seeing  so  many  largest  and  most 
imposing  sublimities,  he  adds,  "Ich  habe  sogar  —  the  purest  water 
in  the  world  —  getrunken."  —  "Americana,"  p.  68. 

Kipling,  on  his  first  journey,  says  he  was  told  the  Palmer 
House  in  Chicago  was  "the  finest  hotel  in  the  finest  city  of  God 
Almighty's  earth." 


72  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

Another  amazed  visitor,  who  admits  the  facts 
about  our  boastings,  tries  to  defend  us  on  the  theory 
that  a  great  deal  of  it  is  a  form  of  American  humor. 
He  takes  a  passage  from  the  novelist  Marryat,  who 
reports  as  follows :  — 

"I  was  once  talking  with  an  American  about  Webster's 
dictionary  and  he  observed,  'Well  now,  Sir,  I  understand  it's 
the  only  one  used  in  the  Court  of  St.  James  by  the  king  and 
princesses  and  that,  by  royal  order.' " 

There  is  in  this  instance  some  inherent  suggestion 
of  whimsical  indulgence  on  the  part  of  this  defender 
of  the  Yankee  dictionary,  but  the  well  meant  thesis 
that  our  vaunting  is  largely  jocular  has,  alas,  very 
scant  truth  in  it.1  But  the  entire  elimination  of  this 
element  leaves  a  quite  terrifying  amount  of  strident 
vaporing  still  to  account  for.  When  Emerson  said 
the  American  eagle  was  a  good  deal  of  a  peacock, 
and  Lowell,  as  ambassador,  groans  "that  so  many 
of  my  countrymen  will  allow  the  European  to  take 
nothing  for  granted  about  the  greatness  of  America," 
they  are  both  telling  the  truth. 

Nor  can  it  be  allowed  to  pass  that  this  glorifying 
is  in  any  way  exclusive  of  the  West.  There  just 
comes  to  hand  an  official  document  of  the  James- 
town Exposition  from  which,  among  many,  I  take 


1  When  some  American  deep-divers  gave  a  public  exhibition  and 
one  of  them,  before  slipping  into  the  water,  called  out,  "  We  can 
dive  deeper  and  stay  under  longer  and  come  up  drier  than  any 
divers  in  the  world,"  the  classification  becomes  easy. 


OUR    TALENT   FOR    BRAGGING  73 

these  sentences,  "  greatest  military  spectacle  the 
world  has  ever  seen,"  "grandest  naval  rendezvous 
in  history,"  "greatest  gathering  of  warships  in  the 
history  of  the  world,"  "the  largest  military  parade 
ground  in  the  world,"  "the  greatest  military  and 
naval  parade  ever  witnessed,"  "the  greatest  display 
of  gorgeous  military  uniform,"  and  "the  greatest 
military  and  naval  celebration  ever  attempted  in 
any  age  by  any  nation."  This  is  an  Eastern  and  not 
a  Western  product,  and  much  more  Atlantic  rhetoric 
with  the  same  resounding  note  could  be  reproduced. 
Foreigners  both  at  the  Chicago  and  the  St.  Louis 
Fairs,  only  on  the  edge  of  the  West,  found  that  "the 
world"  standard  was  no  longer  adequate,  so  the 
"universe"  had  replaced  it.  On  a  very  recent  visit 
an  English  bishop  was  delighted  with  one  of  our 
less  conspicuous  Eastern  colleges.  He  smilingly 
told  its  president  that  it  was  very  restful  to  find  a 
school  that  was  not  in  endowment,  in  rapid  growth, 
in  distinction  of  alumni,  or  in  some  other  way  "the 
biggest  in  the  country."  The  bishop  reports  that 
he  noticed  instantly  the  look  of  surprise  and  protest 
as  his  host  replied,  "But  we  do  cover  more  space 
than  any  college  in  the  United  States."  "  From  this 
time  on,"  says  the  bishop,  "I  avoided  all  occasions 
of  bringing  this  extraordinary  endowment  into  play." 
In  considering  later  (Chapter  VI)  the  asserted 
supersensitiveness  of  the  American  people,  a  little 
light  may  be  thrown  on  the  origin  of  this  self-mag- 
nifying by  the  reaction  on  national  habits  of  that 


74  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

long  border  life  incident  to  the  slow  extension  of 
our  population  toward  the  Pacific  coast.  It  was  a 
life  in  which  the  individual  was  so  thrown  upon  his 
own  resources,  as  to  call  out  every  extreme  of  self- 
assertion  and  independence.  Successes  were  de- 
termined by  his  own  conscious  achievement  rather 
than  by  social  cooperation.  Given  several  genera- 
tions in  which  this  border  life  advances  so  rapidly 
and  with  such  signal  triumphs  over  the  most  re- 
doubtable external  difficulties,  and  these  extremes  of 
self-confidence  are  not  unnatural.  It  is  not  alone 
the  duration  of  this  border  life  with  its  reactions, 
but,  even  more,  its  rapidity  and  its  sense  of  mastery 
and  overcoming  that  have  left  so  powerful  an 
impress  upon  the  mind  and  character.1 

Yet  the  origins  of  the  blemish  are  not  nearly  so 
important  as  the  main  fact  that  we  have  as  a  nation 
sorely  overdone  this  business  of  calling  attention  to 
our  eminence.  I  have  tried  on  several  occasions  to 
trap  a  Japanese  into  some  chance  exercise  of  this 
gift.  It  has  never  met  with  the  least  success.  At 
a  small  gathering  in  New  York,  at  which  four  Japan- 
ese of  distinction  were  present,  an  American  officer 
asked  if  the  Japanese  would  take  Port  Arthur. 
With  the  same  modesty,  amounting  almost  to  self- 
effacement,  in  which  he  had  spoken  of  the  entire 

1  An  obvious  comment  on  this  theory  is  that  we  are  by  no  means 
alone  among  nations  in  having  a  long  "border  life."  If  other 
peoples  (as  in  Australia)  had  this  experience  without  the  excess  of 
brag,  the  theory  is  inadequate. 


OUR   TALENT   FOR    BRAGGING  75 

war,  this  reply  came:  "We  do  not  know.  The 
Russians  fight  with  so  much  spirit  and  die  so  well ! 
but  still  we  hope  in  a  few  months  we  shall  get  pos- 
session of  it."  Only  in  this  tone  could  they  be 
induced  to  speak  of  a  single  incident  of  their  great 
struggle. 

Later  a  Japanese  official  was  congratulated  upon 
their  great  naval  victory  by  one  of  our  own  admirals. 
"Yes,"  was  the  reply,  "we  think  in  Japan  that  our 
future  tasks  will  be  less  difficult."  1 

Remembering  the  degree  of  exultation  which 
followed  Manila  and  Santiago,  what  vocabulary 
would  have  served  us  had  the  Russian  fleet  gone  to 
pieces  before  our  own  ships?  If  Dewey's  fleet  was 
so  easily  made  to  overtop  Nelson  at  Trafalgar,  what 
heroic  fellowship  would  have  been  found  worthy  of 
an  American  Tagb !  And  yet  whatever  revelries 
of  self-admiration  we  may  still  yield  to  under  un- 
wonted excitement,  nothing  is  clearer  than  the  slow 
abatement  of  our  boasting.  More  and  more  it  has 
to  be  done  with  indirection  and  restraint.  This 
toning  down  has  come  as  we  have  grown  more 
securely  conscious  of  a  national  strength  about 
which  there  is  no  question.  The  quoted  bluster 
from  political  speeches  in  the  first  half  of  the  last 
century  would  be  far  more  likely  to  meet  with  derision 
before  any  average  American  audience  at  the  present 

1  De  Amicis  says  for  the  Dutch  that  in  all  their  towns  he  never 
heard  a  trace  of  national  braggadocio  —  personne  ne  laisse  percer 
I' ombre  de  vanite  nationale.  —  "La  Hollande,"  p.  95. 


76  AS   OTHERS   SEE    US 

time.  It  was  a  part  of  the  change  which  Dickens 
noted,  even  in  the  quarter  of  a  century  that  separated 
his  two  visits  to  this  country. 

There  is  truth  in  Bryce's  words:  " Fifty  or  even 
forty  years  ago,  the  conceit  of  this  people  was  a 
byword.  It  was  not  only  self-conscious  but  obtrusive 
and  aggressive.  .  .  .  But  American  conceit  has 
been  steadily  declining  as  the  country  has  grown 
older,  more  aware  of  its  strength,  more  respected 
by  other  countries."  These  are  reassuring  words. 
They  are,  moreover,  true  to  the  extent  that  we  are 
more  easily  and  quickly  ashamed  of  bluster  than  we 
were  in  the  days  when  we  had  plenty  of  shrewd  sus- 
picion about  our  failings,  but  did  not  like  to  have 
them  specified  and  posted  by  an  outsider.  In  such 
improvement  as  there  has  been,  let  us  rejoice,  but 
not  forget  that  the  talent  still  requires  a  great  deal 
of  careful  watching. 


CHAPTER  V 

SOME  OTHER  PECULIARITIES 

IF  there  was  an  excess  of  emphasis  in  the  last 
chapter  upon  a  single  alleged  characteristic,  it  is 
because  foreign  comment  on  our  boastfulness  has 
itself  such  emphasis  and  unanimity.  Upon  no  other 
one  thing  is  there  entire  agreement.  That  we  are 
sordid  in  our  love  of  money  is  asserted  by  a  majority 
of  these  onlookers,  yet  some  of  our  ablest  censors, 
as  we  shall  see,  now  come  gallantly  to  our  defence 
against  this  charge.  That  our  manners  are  pretty 
bad  is  very  commonly  said,  but  this,  too,  is  denied 
by  at  least  a  few  first-rate  foreign  judges.  The 
variations  in  opinion  are  found  about  every  peculiar- 
ity noted  in  this  chapter.  Some  will  have  it  that 
our  democracy  is  full  of  envy;  others,  as  Professor 
Miinsterberg,  deny  this.  The  "American  voice" 
excites  almost  universal  dislike,  yet  it  has  here  and 
there  a  defender.  But  through  the  century,  so  far 
as  I  could  learn,  not  a  single  voice  is  heard  to  defend 
us  against  the  charge  that  our  gift  for  bragging  has 
no  international  competitor. 

Our  frailties,  queernesses,  peculiarities,  distinc- 
tions, make  a  rather  portentous  showing.  To  begin 

77 


78  AS    OTHERS   SEE   US 

in  lighter  vein  and  with  external  characteristics, 
we  can  be  spotted  in  any  part  of  the  world  by  the 
way  our  elbows  rest  upon  the  table.  This  trait  vexed 
a  French  savant  until  he  discovered  our  habit  of 
eating  corn  from  the  cob.  If  for  some  exceptional 
reason  this  sign  fail,  we  may  be  known  by  our  manner 
of  eating  soup.  We  are  the  only  people  who  fill 
the  spoon  by  first  moving  it  away  from  the  body. 
This  lacks  something  of  the  simplicity  of  the  corn-on- 
the-cob  theory.1  It  also,  as  I  have  proved  by  in- 
vestigation, excites  incredulity  among  many  Ameri- 
cans who  assert  that  since  they  could  be  trusted  with 
soup,  the  spoon  has  been  filled  by  moving  it  toward 
the  body.  The  amount  of  gold  displayed  in  the 
teeth  is  another  safe  token.  As  we  have  the  best 
"fire  brigades"  because  of  the  frequency  of  our  fires, 
so  we  have  the  best  dentists  because  our  teeth  are 
bad.  A  Frenchman  hears  that  girls  in  the  United 
States  are  often  married  with  no  other  dowry  than 
the  gold  "mined  into  their  teeth."  In  any  European 
crowd  we  may  be  known  by  our  "inability  to  keep 
still"  or  by  a  "certain  facial  pallor."  As  we  are 
studied  in  our  own  habitat,  there  is  great  "  monotony  " 
or  "lack  of  variety"  in  our  lives  and  ideals;  rooted 
suspicion  toward  people  and  things  we  do  not 
understand ;  lack  of  thoroughness  in  our  habits  and 

1  One  budding  naturalist  among  our  visitors  is  delighted  to 
find  in  Anthony  Trollope  an  account  of  the  American  squash.  It 
was  often  served  to  him, but  he  "had  no  conception  of  its  origin." 
Now  he  learns  that  it  is  the  "pulp  of  the  pumpkin." 


SOME    OTHER   PECULIARITIES  79 

undertakings;  slight  capacity  for  pleasure  for  its 
own  sake;  we  are  "very  silent";  we  are  the  most 
sensitive  of  peoples  under  criticism;  we  are  lawless, 
especially  about  everything  that  touches  our  business 
interests;  we  put  up  supinely  with  small  injustices 
against  which  other  nations  kick.  Especially  the 
French  endow  us  with  a  miraculous  instinct  for 
creating  all  forms  of  associational  activity.  M.  de 
Tocqueville  writes :  *  — 

"In  no  country  in  the  world  has  the  principle  of  associa- 
tion been  more  successfully  used,  or  applied  to  a  greater  multi- 
tude of  objects,  than  in  America.  Besides  the  permanent  asso- 
ciations, which  are  established  by  law,  under  the  names  of 
townships,  cities,  and  counties,  a  vast  number  of  others  are 
formed  and  maintained  by  the  agency  of  private  individuals." 

Chevalier  says :  — 

"The  Yankee  type  exhibits  little  variety;  all  Yankees  seem 
to  be  cast  in  the  same  mould ;  it  was,  therefore,  very  easy  for 
them  to  organize  a  system  of  liberty  for  themselves,  that  is,  to 
construct  a  frame,  within  which  they  should  have  the  necessary 
freedom  of  motion." 

Then,  of  his  own  French  people  he  writes :  — 

"As  for  us,  who  resemble  each  other  in  nothing,  except  in* 
differing  from  everybody  else."  2 

1  "Democracy  in  America,"  p.  242.  . 

Dr.  A.  S.  Crapsey,  for  twenty-eight  years  active  as  a  clergy- 
man in  Rochester,  N.Y.,  in  speaking  of  "the  hundreds  of  orders 
and  associations"  in  that  community,  says,  "They  are  so  funda- 
mentally a  part  of  our  social  life  that  our  civilization  would  fall  to 
pieces  without  them." 

2  Chevalier  was  a  man  of  the  world  and  a  wise  one,  but  these 
quoted  words  offer  so  genuine  a  bit  of  obtuseness  and  provincial- 


80  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

These  modern  writers,  from  De  Rousier  and 
Professor  Vigoroux  to  the  last  book  of  Paul  Adam, 
continue  to  note  this  quality.  M.  Adam  is  so  struck 
by  it  that  he  speaks  of  it  as  more  peculiarly  our  dis- 
tinction than  the  aggressive  individualism  which  most 
writers  identify  with  our  character  and  society. 

If  our  political  and  social  pretensions  as  expressed 
in  our  Declaration  and  patriotic  literature  are  seri- 
ous, we  must  be  said  to  exhibit  a  most  unexpected 
aptitude  for  snobbery.  Both  De  Tocqueville  and 
Laboulaye  find  amusement  in  the  desire  of  Americans 
to  have  it  known  as  soon  as  possible  that  they  are 
probably  descended  from  certain  distinguished 
English  families.  On  this  point  a  great  deal  of 
embarrassing  evidence  is  given  from  the  behavior 
of  many  Americans  in  Europe,  from  the  agility 
with  which  purchasable  titles  are  clutched  at  in 
marriage,  and  from  the  amazing  extension  of  so- 
cieties ready  to  furnish  heraldic  blazonry  (for  a 
consideration)  to  all  comers.1  Harriet  Martineau 

ism  that  they  deserve  comment.  The  Eastern  traveller,  Palgrave, 
fcsays  that  practically  the  whole  East  in  his  time  honestly  thought 
all  Europeans  alike.  They  in  the  East  were,  of  course,  profoundly 
different  one  from  another,  but  to  the  inhabitants  of  Bagdad  or 
Mosool,  there  was  not  the  slightest  difference  between  a  French- 
man, an  Englishman,  and  a  German,  nor  could  they  be  made  to 
understand  the  most  obvious  distinctions.  Hamerton  says  that  to 
the  average  Frenchman  the  English  are  pretty  much  alike.  "  Each 
nation  is  aware  that  there  is  now,  and  always  has  been  in  past 
times,  an  infinite  variety  of  character  within  its  own  border,  but  it 
fails  to  imagine  that  a  like  variety  can  exist  in  a  foreign  country." 
1  One  spectator,  scoffing  at  our  pretence  of  equality,  says,  "The 


W      — 

S     w 


U   JS 


C/3      c 


SOME    OTHER   PECULIARITIES  8l 

has  much  to  say  about  snobbishness  in  the  older 
cities.  Boston  was  even  more  intolerable  to  her  than 
it  was  to  H.  G.  Wells.  As  she  had  taken  our  pre- 
tensions to  equality  seriously,  she  expresses  her  first 
surprise  to  find  that  the  most  interesting  people  are 
so  sharply  separated  by  social  barriers.  In  Phila- 
delphia she  makes  inquiries  about  the  cultivated 
superiorities,  and  is  told  "that  the  mutual  ignorance 
was  from  fathers  of  the  Arch  Street  ladies  having 
made  their  fortunes,  while  the  Chestnut  Street 
ladies  owed  theirs  to  their  grandfathers.  Another, 
who  was  amused  at  a  new  fashion  of  curtseying 
just  introduced,  declared  it  was  from  the  Arch  Street 
ladies  rising  twice  on  their  toes  before  curtseying, 
while  the  Chestnut  Street  ladies  rose  thrice.  I  was 
sure  of  only  one  thing  in  the  matter,  —  that  it  was 
a  pity  that  the  parties  should  lose  the  pleasure  of 
admiring  each  other,  for  no  better  reasons  than 
these :  and  none  better  were  apparent."  l 

Among  our  "grands  traits,"  De  Nevers  insists 
that  a  supercilious  exclusiveness  (V  exclusivisme 
dtdaigneux)  is  to  be  found.  He  says  that  between 
three  and  four  thousand  American  families,  with 
hungry  credulity,  have  traced  their  ancestry  to  those 
who  have  occupied  thrones  somewhere  in  Europe. 
It  is  this  writer  who  attributes  to  us  a  unique  de- 
velopment of  "altruistic  vanity"  which  is  un  pro- 

Americans  seem  to  have  no  notion  that  Nature  went  into  the  busi- 
ness before  the  Declaration  of  Independence." 
1  "Society  in  America,"  Vol.  I,  p.  173. 


82  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

duct  dbsoluement  Amiricain.  This  amiability  is 
illustrated  by  the  generous  and  free  distribution  of 
titles  which  encourage  the  "ambitions  and  the  good 
nature  of  the  community."  It  was  Marryat,  I 
think,  who  met  "in  the  United  States  chiefly  colonels 
and  captains  who  had  never  been  in  any  army, 
but  owed  their  dignity  to  the  good-will  of  their 
neighbors."  The  rebuke  of  Mr.  Bryce  is  conveyed 
with  such  literary  skill  that  one  must  italicize  a  part 
of  it.  He  speaks  of  our  "enthusiasm  for  anything 
that  can  be  called  genius  with  an  over-readiness  to 
discover  it" 

Again,  one  of  our  primary  passions  is  "to  overdo 
things."  If  we  take  on  any  new  habit,  like  the 
tipping  of  waiters  and  attendants,  we  are  not  content 
to  exercise  it  with  the  least  restraint.  It  must  be 
carried  into  all  forms  of  demoralizing  excess.  An 
Englishman  is  taken  to  one  of  the  more  fashionable 
New  York  clubs  on  several  occasions.  He  says  that 
his  American  hosts  in  no  instance  gave  less  than  a 
dollar  tip  to  the  cabman.1  "What,"  he  asks,  "can 
you  expect  of  a  system  that  gives  as  a  tip  .three 
times  as  much  as  my  fare  from  the  station  to  my 
club  in  London  ever  costs  me?" 

1  This  seemed  to  me  extravagant  both  as  a  tip  and  a  story. 
I  have,  however,  verified  it.  A  gentleman  frequently  at  one  of 
these  clubs  tells  me :  "  I  have  several  times  gone  there  to  dine  with 
two  fellows  whom  no  one  would  call  rich.  I  have  repeatedly  seen  a 
crisp  dollar  bill  given  as  a  tip.  I  supposed  it  was  the  fare,  until 
I  found  out,  in  this  instance,  that  the  cabs  were  paid  for  at  the 
club." 


SOME    OTHER    PECULIARITIES  83 

Our  "pitiless  hospitality"  is  another  phase  of 
this  "genius  for  overdoing."  That  the  Yankees 
are  tuft-hunters  can  be  seen  in  "this  inability  to  let 
any  kind  of  celebrity  alone  a  minute."  They  will 
drive  him  to  death  if  they  can  get  some  glory  out 
of  it.  Frederika  Bremer  has  many  complaints  of 
this.  She  writes:  "And  that  is  the  way  they  kill 
strangers  in  this  country.  They  have  no  mercy  on 
the  poor  lion,  who  must  make  a  show  and  whisk  his 
tail  about  as  long  as  there  is  any  life  left  in  him. 
One  must  really  be  downright  obstinate  and  stern, 
if  one  would  be  at  peace  here.  And  I  feel  as  if  I 
should  become  so.  It  is  said  that  Spurzheim  was 
regularly  killed  with  kindness  by  the  Bostonians." 

This  "impulse  to  excess"  has  many  dangerous 
illustrations.  "When  the  passion  has  vented  itself, 
interest  dies  out,"  as  in  our  "prolific  and  insane 
passing  of  laws."  "For  every  conceivable  evil, 
real  or  imagined,  the  Yankee  must  have  a  law,  but 
when  it  is  passed,  he  goes  about  his  business  as  if 
nothing  more  were  required."  The  result  being  that 
"nowhere  is  there  such  a  bewildering  mass  of  unen- 
forced  and  forgotten  laws  as  in  America." 

Among  civilized  folk,  we  have  the  least  agreeable 
speaking  voice;  we  have  a  passion  for  exaggeration 
and  bigness  apart  from  quality  and  excellence.  This 
latter  shows  itself  not  only  externally  (as  in  our 
advertising  and  our  press  methods)  but  in  our 
tastes  and  habits  of  thought. 

Perhaps  not  unconnected   with  this    is    another 


84  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

observation  that  is  often  expressed  by  foreign  students 
about  our  educational  institutions.  It  is  admitted 
that  we  have  specific  schools  of  the  highest  rank  in 
administrative  efficiency,  but  that  the  visiting  stu- 
dent is  surprised  by  nothing  so  much  as  the  larger 
number  that  have  elaborate  up-to-date  external 
equipment  and  housing  with  feeble  and  ineffective 
teaching.  An  English  educator,  after  seeing  our 
schools  during  a  five  months'  trip,  says,  "There  are 
no  better  schools  in  the  world  than  a  few  I  could 
name,  but  in  many  others  with  imposing  and  costly 
plants,  the  teaching  is  so  poor  that  your  public 
appears  to  trust  the  magnificence  of  the  plant  rather 
than  the  capacity  of  the  teachers." 

To  continue  our  discipline,  we  have  an  extraordi- 
nary optimism,  especially  where  there  seems  to  be 
no  justification  for  it;  we  are  also  "fatalists,"  ac- 
cepting grimly  or  cheerfully  all  sorts  of  defeats  when 
once  the  issue  is  decided;  we  are  "the  only  people 
to  whom  hotels  and  travelling  are  ends  in  them- 
selves." This  is  a  part  of  our  surplus  (or  morbid) 
energy  and  love  of  change,  which  excites  many  com- 
ments. Our  curiosity  is  very  highly  developed ; 
we  have  little  "love  of  locality."  We  have  unusual 
powers  of  adaptability  to  new  and  sudden  emergen- 
cies; we  are  "most  intellectually  tolerant,"  have 
"great  good  nature,"1  "unlimited  push,"  "inven- 

1  Sir  Arthur  Helps  puts  these  words  into  the  mouth  of  his 
lawyer,  "I  think  you  cannot  help  being  struck  by  their  good  nature, 
even  when  they  [the  Americans]  commence  blowing  their  tiresome 
national  trumpet."  —  "Essays  on  Organization,"  p.  208. 


SOME   OTHER   PECULIARITIES  85 

tion,"   "energy,"   "versatility,"   and  a  widespread 
"whimsical  humor." 

It  is  very  painful  to  find  that  other  nations  do  not 
think  us  the  wittiest  folk  in  the  universe,  but  "a 
certain  generally  diffused  humor"  is  readily  granted 
to  us.  We  are  known,  finally,  by  one  other  ugly 
distinction  which  gives  us  easy  and  sinister  precedence 
among  civilized  folk  of  all  the  world.  Side  by  side 
with  lordly  hospitalities  for  all  the  embodied  en- 
lightenments, we  show  a  mania  to  foster  and  sup- 
port multitudes  of  impostors.  Mr.  Muirhead's 
words  were,  "the  home  of  the  charlatan  and  the 
quack."  Why,  it  is  asked,  should  a  people  so  priding 
itself  on  its  practical  good  sense  open  its  arms  to 
every  religious  and  medical  charlatan  on  earth? 
One  visitor  tries  to  make  a  record  of  all  the  obvious 
quacks  in  a  small  city  of  twenty  thousand.  Palmists, 
clairvoyants,  fortune-tellers,  soothsayers,  astrologers, 
innumerable  healers,  magicians,  exorcists,  he  finds 
in  such  numbers  that  he  is  sure  "the  Americans 
don't  know  themselves  what  a  pest  of  vampires  and 
parasites  they  harbor."  More  dangerous  than  this 
swarm  of  necromancers,  however,  is  the  patent 
medicine  fiend.  Here  our  passion  for  humbug  is 
exercised  at  terrible  cost.  This  investigator  gives 
up  his  task  of  counting  the  quacks,  but  says  he  now 
understands  why  we  are  "a  headachy  and  dyspeptic 
people."  "It  is  a  nation  of  nervously  disturbed 
people."  A  French  engineer,  four  years  in  the 
West,  thinks  the  Americans  are  not  to  be  feared  by 


86  AS   OTHERS   SEE    US 

competing  nations,  because  they  will  lose  their  pres- 
tige and  strength  through  the  quack  doctor. 

De  Nevers,  also,  connects  our  ill  health  with 
"the  colossal  use  of  drugs." 

One  writer  thinks  the  palmists  and  sorcerers 
generally  are  welcomed  and  maintained  as  we  wel- 
come vaudeville  or  any  source  of  fun.  We  get 
amusement  enough  out  of  them  to  justify  the  ex- 
pense, but  are  not  really  fooled  by  them.  The 
quack  doctor  and  patent  medicine  man  are  not  thus 
accounted  for.  They  are  like  a  "permanent  devas- 
tating plague."  "Why  should  this  most  beschooled 
and  newspapered  nation  in  the  world  freely  exhaust 
itself  by  fostering  this  army  of  leeches?"  One 
gives  a  long  list  of  advertisements  of  which  the 
following  is  an  illustration:  — 

"  Great  Clairvoyant !  Mme.  Stuart ;  THE  SEVENTH 

DAUGHTER    OF    THE    SEVENTH    DAUGHTER,    has    read 

cards  since  n  years  of  age,  —  life  revealed,  past, 
present,  future,  —  ladies  or  gents,  SQC." 

Here  is  the  full  and  redoubtable  catalogue  of  our 
peculiarities,  both  in  terms  of  weakness  and  of 
strength,  as  gathered  from  this  literary  annotation 
on  our  institutions  and  behavior.  It  is  a  medley  of 
vigors  and  incompletenesses,  of  many  offences  and 
some  sturdy  excellences. 

There  are  innumerable  variations  given  to  these 
supposed  characteristics,  but  for  the  most  part  they 
analyze  into  the  more  general  ones  here  given. 
Between  several  of  these,  as  we  have  seen,  any  real 


SOME    OTHER   PECULIARITIES  87 

distinction  is  difficult  to  maintain.  For  example, 
if  there  is  a  " fatalistic"  quality  in  our  character, 
it  is  not  something  inherently  different  and  apart 
from  our  "indiscriminate  optimism,"  or  even  from 
our  "general  good  nature."  If  we  are  careless  and 
indifferent  about  common  social  wrongs  and  griev- 
ances, this  is  not  distinct  from  our  "tolerance." 
"Adaptability"  is  a  part  of  our  "love  of  change." 
If  we  have  "a  passion  for  bigness,"  that  becomes  a 
general  term  for  other  minor  shortcomings  like  our 
"lack  of  tact,"  our  "importunate  hospitality"  and 
"lack  of  restraint."  Some  of  these  require  no  com- 
ment, as  they  are  merely  human  and  race  frailties,  not 
in  the  least  peculiar  to  our  geography.  With  only  a 
portion,  even  of  the  truthful  strictures,  can  we  deal. 
But  first:  Toward  the  main  charges,  what  attitude 
are  we  to  take  ?  Shall  we  greedily  accept  the  flatter- 
ing ascriptions,  but  bristle  with  testy  denial  at  the 
unflattering  ones?  This  would  too  easily  justify 
our  critics.  Smugly  to  take  the  praise  and  show 
affront  at  the  blame,  would  prove  that  one  damaging 
criticism  is  true:  that  "the  American  cannot  stand 
criticism";  that  "unless  you  coddle  him,  he  sulks 
and  won't  play."  One  writer  in  1840,  examining 
our  prisons,  says:  "I  found  I  could  not  criticise  with 
the  slightest  freedom.  Unless  I  had  plenty  of  com- 
pliments, I  could  not  even  get  the  information  I 
wanted.  If  I  put  it  all  on  with  a  trowel,  I  could  get 
any  question  answered."  We  shall  see  later  what 
a  mass  of  evidence  there  is  on  this  point.  The  only 


00  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

proof  that  we  have  outgrown  this  childishness  must 
be  in  our  present  readiness  to  face  the  censure  as 
gayly  as  the  approbation. 

Another  form  of  that  early  oversensitiveness  is 
to  boast  fussily  that  we  don't  in  the  least  care  what 
foreigners  think  of  us.  This  only  adds  stupidity  to 
childishness. 

To  be  intellectually  hospitable  to  these  critics  is 
not  in  the  least  to  admit  their  infallibility.  Much 
less  does  it  admit  that  criticisms  once  true  are  still 
true.  Some  of  them  that  were  meant  as  a  stigma 
or  weakness  are  virtues  in  the  making.  "Yankee 
curiosity"  has  received  much  abuse,  but  it  is  one 
of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  growing  intelligence. 
Several  of  our  more  recent  visitors  express  surprise 
that  this  prying  curiosity  of  which  they  had  read 
or  heard  so  much  is  nowhere  to  be  found  except 
as  an  exceptional  phenomenon.  So,  too,  with  the 
charge  of  "suspicion."  That  we  are  exceptional 
in  this  has  probably  no  shred  of  truth  so  far  as  it  is 
meant  to  stand  for  a  national  characteristic.  For- 
eigners far  oftener  note  an  extreme  openness  and 
frankness  of  mind  which  even  become  objects  of 
criticism.  Suspicion  is  a  product  of  social  or  class 
conditions,  or  it  is  the  merely  human  expression  of 
timidities  and  doubts  when  inexperienced  folk  are 
placed  in  wholly  new  and  unwonted  surroundings. 
One  of  the  critics  explains  that  he  never  saw  this 
suspicion  in  Americans  in  their  own  country,  but 
observed  it  only  when  he  saw  them  in  Europe. 


SOME    OTHER   PECULIARITIES  89 

Even  such  a  count  against  us  as  that  we  are  the 
"happy  hunting-ground  of  all  extant  quackeries," 
that  we  "are  the  only  nation  of  rank  that  fosters 
and  protects  all  forms  of  charlatanism,"  raises  an 
issue  that  is  not  to  be  dismissed  as  if  it  were  a  final 
judgment. 

There  are  specific  forms  pf  commercialized  hum- 
bug that  are  definitely  known  to  be  such  by  the  sim- 
plest tests  and  common  experience.  Against  these 
no  scathing  can  be  too  severe.  But  our  critics  in- 
clude in  their  condemnation  far  more  than  these. 
There  is  the  assumption  of  some  existing  religious, 
educational,  scientific,  moral,  or  political  standard, 
from  which  any  departure  is  a  depravity.  Ygt 
much  of  the  world's  new  truth  is  constantly  breaking 
in  upon  us  through  those  that  at  the  time  are  called 
cranks  and  impostors.  What  would  become  of 
religion,  science,  medicine,  politics,  art,  and  educa- 
tion, social  reforms,  if  in  each  the  strictly  orthodox 
contingent  were  allowed  to  define  and  dispose  of 
heresies;  if  to  those  various  orthodoxies  were  given 
sole  power  to  decide  the  activities  and  the  destinies 
of  those  groping  and  experimenting  on  life's  frontier  ? 
There  is  none  to  whom  the  race  has  more  cause  for 
gratitude  than  the  long  list  of  those  who  were  the 
erratic  and  ostracized  of  their  day.  The  accusation 
against  the  English,  that  they  suffer  still  because 
they  cannot  bear  with  eccentricity,  is  as  late  as  John 
Stuart  Mill.  Tolerance  has  its  dangers,  but  a 
straitened  conventionalism  has  perils  greater  still. 


90  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

Again,  a  French  writer  complains  that  we  are  cold 
and  unresponsive.  That  is  what  the  Latin  race 
would  ascribe  to  all  northern  races.  De  Amicis 
knew  Holland  well,  and  that  is  his  criticism  against 
the  Dutch.  That  all  northern  peoples  are  more 
indifferent  to  pleasure  for  its  own  sake,  is  true  from 
the'  Latin  point  of  view. 

Still  other  of  these  traits  are  explained  by  the 
character  of  the  period  of  development.  They  would 
be  as  true  of  other  nations  when  the  corresponding 
stage  was  reached.  Given  our  facilities  for  constant 
travel,  and  they,  too,  will  be  "restless"  and  "in- 
cessantly on  the  go,"  and  apparently  have  "slight 
attachment  to  the  home."  . 

"Lack  of  thoroughness,"  in  the  sense  meant,  was 
inevitable  and  even  justifiable  in  the  early  decades 
of  the  last  century,  when  the  criticism  was  oftenest 
made.  Americans  have,  says  one,  "an  absurd  lack 
of  thoroughness."  It  will  be  remembered  that 
words  like  "absurd"  and  "ridiculous"  are  usually 
applied  by  us  to  objects  and  happenings,  the  real 
meaning  or  explanation  of  which  we  do  not  under- 
stand. The  "absurdity"  is  properly  in  our  own 
lack  of  comprehension. 

For  example,  our  "flimsy  wooden  houses"  have 
excited  a  great  deal  of  emotional  rhetoric.  They 
were  almost  the  first  objects  noted  by  Dickens. 
They  seemed  "to  have  no  root."  They  looked 
as  if  they  "could  be  taken  up  piecemeal  like  a  child's 
toy,"  and  crammed  into  a  little  box.1  Another  says 
1  "American  Notes,"  Vol.  I,  p.  23. 


SOME    OTHER    PECULIARITIES  91 

they  are  "as  absurd  as  they  are  dangerous  and 
wasteful."  A  stately  English  scholar  said  while 
lecturing  here:  "Your  wooden  houses,  I  can't 
understand.  Why  don't  you  put  up  something  in 
stone  and  brick  that  will  be  solid  at  the  end  of  three 
hundred  years,  as  we  do  in  England?"  An  Ameri- 
can, to  whom  the  question  was  put,  answered:  "It 
is  because  we  don't  want  that  kind  of  a  house. 
Changes,  improvements,  new  comforts  of  all  sorts 
come  so  fast,  that  we  don't  want  a  house  to  last  too 
long.  This  house  is  what  I  want,  but  not  what  my 
children  will  want.  Even  I  want  to  make  some 
structural  change  every  ten  years.  I  can  now  do 
it  without  being  ruined,  as  I  could  not  in  one  of 
your  three-century  dwellings."  "Bless  my  heart," 
replied  the  Englishman,  "I  never  thought  of  that. 
You  want  houses  that  will  easily  take  on  improve- 
ments as  they  come,  and  be  free  to  build  a  new  and 
better  one  every  generation,  if  you  want  to."  I 
heard  the  Englishman  say  later,  as  he  was  com- 
menting on  the  above  conversation,  "It  is  really 
extraordinary  how  stupid  most  of  us  are  in  not  trying 
to  discover  why  people  do  things  in  different  ways, 
before  we  set  up  as  judges."  This  bit  of  obvious 
wisdom  applies  quite  as  well  to  a  good  many  of  the 
"characteristics"  which  here  occupy  us. 

There  are,  however,  some  of  these  strictures  that 
are  not  to  be  explained  away  or  even  to  be  interna- 
tionalized. Stretch  the  margin  of  exceptions  widely 
as  we  may,  the  "American  voice"  in  many  parts  of 


Q2  AS  OTHERS  SEE  US 

the  country  and  among  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  population  is  so  sadly  deficient  in  resonance  and 
pleasing  quality  that  no  ardor  of  patriotism  can  save 
our  pride  about  it.  That  the  great  mass  of  us  do 
not  set  ourselves  —  like  the  English,  for  example  — 
stoutly  against  recognized  evils  and  nuisances  of 
the  commoner  sort  is  incontestable.  Herbert  Spencer 
saw  in  this  one  of  our  chief  weaknesses.  It  is  again 
and  again  asked,  Why  should  a  people  of  such  un- 
doubted vitality  and  assertion  have  this  failing? 
Chevalier  says:  "They  eat  what  is  placed  before 
them,  without  ever  allowing  themselves  to  make 
any  remark  about  it.  They  stop  at  the  pleasure  of 
the  driver  and  the  captain,  without  showing  the  least 
symptom  of  impatience;  they  allow  themselves  to 
be  overturned  and  their  ribs  to  be  broken  by  the  one, 
without  uttering  a  complaint  or  a  reproach;  the 
discipline  is  even  more  complete  than  in  the  camp." 

A  British  critic  calls  this  "the  little-understood 
stoicism  of  the  Yankee"  in  contrast  to  which,  he 
says  that  "if  an  Englishman  finds  his  chop  slightly 
burnt,  he  barks  at  everybody  in  sight." 

That  Americans  in  the  presence  of  great  and 
impending  evils  show  extraordinary  mettle  has  often 
enough  been  said  at  home  and  abroad.  Even  the 
English  found  us  sufficiently  lively  as  kickers  in  1776 
and  1812.  The  sacrifices  for  an  idea  North  and  South 
in  the  Civil  War  mark  the  first  profound  change  of 
tone  in  foreign  criticism.  John  Bright  could  say, 
"A  nation  that  can  suffer  like  that  for  its  principles 


SOME    OTHER    PECULIARITIES  93 

has  answered  all  critics  that  are  capable  of  under- 
standing ideals."  But  these  are  the  great  events. 
It  is  conceded  that  these  stir  us  to  real  unselfishness 
and  intrepidity.  The  criticism  concerns  those  lesser 
evils  and  injustices  which  continue  to  afflict  most 
communities,  and  which  Mr.  Lowell  thought  likely 
to  continue  because  of  "the  divine  patience  of 
my  fellow-countrymen."  The  illustrations  of  this 
lethargy  are  troublesome  from  their  very  number. 

I  choose  three  very  simple  instances  from  New 
England  communities  that  are  often  spoken  of  as 
exceptional,  so  far  as  educational  opportunity  and 
general  well-being  are  concerned.  In  the  first  one, 
serious  political  evils  had  developed  during  the  last 
twenty  years,  largely  in  connection  with  carelessly 
bestowed  franchises.  From  this  root  came  treacher- 
ous politics  and  slovenliness  in  the  care  of  the  city 
streets  and  sanitation.  After  some  ten  years  of 
this,  I  heard  the  following  comment  from  the  one 
citizen  who,  by  common  consent,  was  foremost  in 
public  spirit.  He  said,  "No  effort  that  we  can 
make  seems  really  to  move  the  mass  of  our  best 
citizens  at  all.  Some  of  them  will  come  to  a  meeting 
and  talk  manfully,  but  when  it  comes  to  giving  their 
time  and  continuous  work,  even  one  evening  in  the 
week,  they  fall  down.  The  college  graduate  as  a 
class,  and  men  from  whom  you  would  expect  most, 
are  about  as  good  as  so  many  dead  men.  They 
usually  say  they  are  too  busy,  but  I  find  a  large  part 
of  them  using  up  four  or  five  times  as  many  hours 


94  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

as  this  public  service  would  require,  at  golf,  at  their 
clubs,  or  at  the  card  table.  Enough  men  play  poker 
every  day  from  four  o'clock  till  dinner,  to  set  these 
things  right  in  six  months." 

The  second  instance  is  a  much-schooled  com- 
munity in  which  harassing  juvenile  misdemeanors, 
among  other  things,  have  long  been  such  a  plague 
as  to  excite  much  discussion.  The  Captain  of 
Police,  who  had  special  experience  with  these 
offenders,  said  in  my  hearing:  "You  needn't  blame 
the  kids ;  the  trouble  is  in  the  public,  but  especially 
in  the  educated  and  well-to-do  people.  There  are 
just  two  in  this  town  who  have  sand  enough  to  take 
any  real  trouble  after  they  make  complaint.  Those 
two  will  go  to  court  and  see  it  through,  but  the  rest 
of  the  citizens  just  grumble,  but  can't  be  made  to 
do  anything  about  it." 

When  these  facts  were  brought  out  at  a  public 
meeting  in  the  third  town,  a  sociological  professor 
made  the  reply:  "We  thought  all  the  time  you  were 
talking  about  us.  Several  of  our  citizens  have 
given  up  raising  fruit  and  flowers,  because  there 
seems  to  be  no  way  in  which  stealing  and  destruction 
can  be  prevented.  One  of  my  acquaintances  cut 
down  his  fruit  trees,  although  he  never  would  take 
the  trouble  to  appear  in  court  against  the  offender, 
even  when  the  petty  thief  had  been  caught.  He 
gave  as  a  reason  that  he  always  imagined  a  dis- 
tracted mother  would  appear  and  make  such  a  fuss 
for  her  boy  that  he  couldn't  stand  it."  This  pro- 


SOME    OTHER    PECULIARITIES  95 

fessor  enriched  the  discussion  by  adding  that  the 
reason  why  our  domestic  service  is  so  bad  is  that 
almost  all  mistresses  are  too  cowardly  to  tell  the 
truth.  When  the  servant  leaves,  and  the  mistress 
gives  a  "recommendation,"  she  tells  the  most  atro- 
cious fibs  about  the  girl's  real  faults,  and  then  ex- 
cuses herself  on  the  ground  that  she  "really  can't 
hurt  the  girl's  prospects."  This  coincides  with  one 
of  Mrs.  Bacon's  conclusions  about  the  servant  ques- 
tion, that  little  is  to  be  hoped  for.  "Until  women 
can  offer  honesty  in  their  written  references,  and 
supply  full  details  to  written  questions,  they  have  no 
right  to  complain  of  bad  service  from  bureaus  or 
employees."  1 

It  is  this  hesitation  to  face  unpleasant  facts 
rather  than  to  be  disagreeable  and  pugnacious  about 
them,  after  the  genius  of  our  English  cousins,  that 
calls  out  the  criticism.  James  Muirhead  says, 
"Americans  invented  the  slang  word  'kicker,' 
but  so  far  as  I  could  see,  their  vocabulary  is  here 
miles  ahead  of  their  practice;  they  dream  noble 
deeds,  but  do  not  do  them ;  Englishmen  '  kick '  much 
better,  without  having  a  name  for  it."  2  I  have 
never  found  an  American  who  denied  this  criticism 
after  he  had  fairly  considered  it.  One  remembers 
little  spurts  of  protest  now  and  then.  Indignant 
letters  are  sent  to  the  press  to  complain  of  late 
trains,  crowded  trollies,  or  soft-coal  smoke.  Yet  the 

1  American  Magazine,  February,  1907,  p.  360. 
J  "The  Land  of  Contrasts,"  p.  801. 


9  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

difference  between  our  general  acquiescence,  and 
the  English  habit  of  quick  and  lusty  resistance  to 
minor  evils,  has  no  exaggeration  in  Herbert  Spencer's 
comment.  A  humorous  illustration  of  the  English 
habit  is  shown  me  by  Mr.  Muirhead  in  the  English 
"Who's  Who"  for  1904.  Mr.  Ashton  gives,  as  one 
of  his  recreations,  writing  letters  to  the  press  on 
various  subjects;  of  these,  over  550  call  attention 
to  neglect  of  graves  of  noteworthy  people. 

In  one  of  our  smaller  cities,  the  overchoked  condi- 
tion of  the  street-cars  called  out  a  protest  in  the 
press.  The  local  trolley  magnate  was  incensed  by 
this  lack  of  consideration  on  the  part  of  the  public. 
He  said  the  company  couldn't  do  any  better,  adding, 
"The  seats  only  pay  our  expenses:  the  straps  give 
us  our  dividends."  As  long  as  we  submit  to  rank 
affronts  of  that  character,  we  deserve  what  we  get. 

For  the  degree  of  truth  there  is  in  the  criticism, 
what  reasons  can  be  given?  Is  it  a  part  of  our 
"miscellaneous  good  nature"  or  of  our  "fatalism"? 
Is  it  that  our  "gift  of  tolerance,"  which  Klein  notes, 
includes  things  evil  as  well  as  good  ?  The  extempo- 
rized reason  is  usually  that  we  are  "too  busy  with 
our  own  affairs."  I  have  even  heard  it  said  that 
we  have  too  much  "humor"  to  be  fussy  about  ordi- 
nary evils.  A  sociological  teacher  in  one  of  our 
colleges  states  it  thus:  "The  truth  is,  our  individual 
relation  to  the  whole  pest  of  lesser  injustices  and 
evils  is  so  slight  and  so  indirect,  that  anything  an 
individual  can  do  strikes  him  as  ridiculous.  I  am 


CAFIAIN  BASIL  HALL 
Author  of  "  Travels  in  North  America  : 


97 

asked,  for  instance,  to  join  the  protestants  against 
'city  noises.'  They  are  an  infernal  nuisance,  but 
when  I  think  of  any  conceivable  thing  I  can  do  to 
check  the  nuisance,  the  incongruity  makes  me  smile." 
That  we  do  not  like  to  make  ourselves  conspicuous 
or  disagreeable  accounts,  I  think,  for  more  of  this 
easy  acquiescence  than  surplus  of  humor. 

It  is  not  unlikely  that  one  deeper  reason  why  the 
English  are  blunt  and  abrupt  about  their  rights,  is 
because  class  lines  are  so  much  more  sharply  drawn 
there.  Within  these  limits,  one  is  likely  to  develop 
the  habit  of  demanding  his  dues.  He  insists  upon 
his  prerogatives  all  the  more  because  they  are  more 
narrowly  denned.  When  an  English  writer  *  says, 
"We  are  not  nearly  so  much  afraid  of  one  another  in 
England  as  you  are  in  the  States,"  he  expresses  this 
truth.  In  a  democracy  every  one  at  least  hopes  to 
get  on  and  up.  This  ascent  depends  not  upon  the 
favor  of  a  class,  but  upon  the  good-will  of  the  whole. 
This  social  whole  has  to  be  conciliated.  It  must  be 
conciliated  in  both  directions  —  at  the  top  and  at  the 
bottom.  To  make  one's  self  conspicuous  and  dis- 
agreeable, is  to  arouse  enmities  that  block  one's  way. 

This  is  in  part  what  De  Tocqueville  means  in  one 
of  his  few  severities,  "I  know  of  no  country  in  which 
there  is  so  little  independence  of  mind  and  real 
freedom  of  discussion  as  in  America."  Professor 
Munsterberg  evidently  thinks  Germany  has  more 
"inner  freedom";  and  even  adds,  "If  I  consider 

1  Jowett,  Book  VIII,  p.  588. 


98  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

the  outer  forms  of  life,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  maintain 
that  Germany  is  even  in  that  respect  freer  than  the 
United  States."  *  An  honored  citizen  of  Maine  has 
given  it  as  the  worst  feature  of  their  constitutional 
prohibition  that  "it  paralyzes  the  intellectual  inde- 
pendence of  our  politicians."  He  named  three  men 
prominent  as  statesmen.  "I  know  personally  that 
every  one  of  them  heartily  disbelieves  in  that  liquor 
legislation,  but  they  will  not  imperil  their  careers 
by  saying  so  in  public."  That  this  "saving  sub- 
serviency" will  be  found  in  every  nation  of  the 
world  is,  of  course,  true.  That  it  is  more  necessarily 
prevalent  in  a  large  and  loose  democracy  is  what 
these  criticisms  imply. 

As  other  of  these  imputed  characteristics  are  to 
have  further  consideration  under  topics  which  they 
serve  to  illustrate,  the  next  chapter  will  be  devoted 
to  a  peculiarity  that  is  a  kind  of  tap-root  from  which 
others  spring;  namely,  the  extreme  sensitiveness  of 
the  American  people  under  criticism. 

1  "American  Traits,"  p.  33. 


CHAPTER  VI 

AMERICAN  SENSITIVENESS 

ONE  of  our  critics  reports  that  he  meant  to  make 
a  third  trip  to  the  United  States,  but  that  he  suffered 
so  much  from  the  perpetual  inquiry,  "How  do  you 
like  America?"  "How  do  you  like  our  city  or 
town?"  that  he  concluded  to  stay  at  home. 

The  fame  of  Frederika  Bremer  gave  her  universal 
welcome  among  us  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 
Her  two  volumes  1  are  full  of  appreciation,  but  she 
is  "vexed  to  distraction"  by  insistent  personal  ques- 
tioning, of  which  this  is  one  example :  — 

"At  the  hotel  at  Buffalo  I  was  again  tormented  by  some 
new  acquaintance  with  the  old,  tiresome  questions,  'How  do 
you  like  America?'  'How  do  you  like  the  States?'  'Does 
Buffalo  look  according  to  your  expectations?'  To  which 
latter  question  I  replied  that  I  had  not  expected  anything 
from  Buffalo."  2 

This  plague  of  questioning  assumed  many  forms 
and  became  a  sore  trial  to  her.  She  thought  as  she 
went  South  she  might  be  free  from  it.  But  there, 
too,  it  haunted  her. 

1  "Homes  of  the  New  World,"  two  volumes,  Harpers,  1853. 

2  "Homes  of  the  New  World,"  Vol.  I,  p.  596. 

99 


100  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

"You  are  asked,  for  example, — 

'Will  you  have  butter?' 

'Yes,  I  thank  you.' 

'Will  you  take  fish  or  meat?  chicken  or  turkey?' 

'Chicken,  if  you  please.' 

'Have  you  any  choice?    The  breast  or  a  wing?' 

Then  comes,  'Will  you  have  pickles?' 

'No,  I  thank  you.' 

A  pause  and  calm  ensues  for  two  minutes.  But  then 
somebody  to  your  left  discovers  that  you  have  no  pickles,  and 
pickles  come  to  you  from  the  left.  '  May  I  help  you  to 
pickles?' 

'No,  I  thank  you.' 

After  a  few  minutes  more  somebody  on  the  right  sees 
that  you  have  no  pickles,  and  hastens  to  offer  you  the  bottle. 
'Will  you  not  take  pickles?' 

You  then  begin  an  interesting  conversation  with  your  next 
neighbor;  and,  just  as  you  are  about  to  ask  some  question  of 
importance,  a  person  opposite  you  observes  that  you  are  not 
eating  pickles,  and  the  pickle-bottle  comes  to  you  across  the 
table."  l 

If  we  are  to  believe  several  other  visiting  celebrities, 
the  question,  "How  do  you  like  us?"  begins  before 
landing,  never  fails  at  the  dock,  and  continues  until 
the  poor  victim  is  under  shelter  in  his  native  land. 
If  the  traveller  has  a  turn  for  philosophizing,  he  is 
sure  to  ask  why  the  American  has  this  itching  desire 
to  know  what  every  foreigner  thinks  about  his  town 
or  country.  One  maintains  that  "familiarity  with 
half  the  world"  never  elicited  this  inquiry  in  any 
other  country.  An  American  who  had  spent  much 

»  "Homes  of  the  New  World,"  Vol.  I,  p.  334. 


AMERICAN   SENSITIVENESS  IOI 

of  his  life  in  Europe  told  me  he  never  remembered 
once  being  asked,  "  How  do  you  like  Italy,  or  Eng- 
land, or  Germany  ?  "  Bryce  says  in  his  Introduction, 
"In  England  one  does  not  inquire  from  foreigners, 
nor  even  from  Americans,  their  views  on  the  English 
laws  and  government ;  nor  does  the  Englishman  on 
the  continent  find  Frenchmen  or  Germans  or  Italians 
anxious  to  have  his  judgment  on  their  politics." 
G.W.  Steevens1  thinks  that  while  personally  we  are 
"entirely  free  from  self-consciousness,"  our  national 
self -consciousness  is  extreme  in  its  development. 
We  are  "uneasy  unless  we  know  what  the  observer 
is  thinking."  Buckminster  notes  in  1838 2  that 
"the  first  citizen  of  Pennsylvania,  Nicholas  Biddle," 
in  an  address  delivered  at  Princeton  College,  used 
these  words,  "When  some  unhappy  traveller  ven- 
tures to  smile  at  follies  which  we  do  not  see  or  dare 
not  acknowledge,  instead  of  disregarding  it  or  being 
amused  by  it,  we  resent  it  as  an  indignity  to  our 
sovereign  perfections."  This  differs  little  from 
Mrs.  Trollope:  — 

"If  I  say  to  an  American  that  the  country  he  lives  in  is  a 
fine  one,  'Ay,'  he  replies,  'there  is  not  its  equal  in  the  world.' 
If  I  applaud  the  freedom  which  its  inhabitants  enjoy,  he  an- 
swers, 'Freedom  is  a  fine  thing,  but  few  nations  are  worthy 
to  enjoy  it.'  If  I  remark  the  purity  of  morals  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  United  States,  'I  can  imagine,'  he  says,  'that 
a  stranger  who  has  witnessed  the  corruption  that  prevails  in 
other  nations,  should  be  astonished  at  the  difference.'  At 

1  "Land  of  the  Dollar,"  p.  315. 

2  "Travels  in  America,"  Vol.  II,  p.  45. 


102  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

length,  I  leave  him  to  the  contemplation  of  himself;  but  he 
returns  to  the  charge,  and  does  not  desist  till  he  has  got  me 
to  repeat  all  I  have  just  been  saying.  It  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive a  more  troublesome  or  more  garrulous  patriotism;  it 
wearies  even  those  who  are  disposed  to  respect  it."  l 

Alfred  Bunn,  an  English  lecturer,  writes : 2  — 

"Such  an  unhappily  sensitive  community  surely  never  ex- 
isted in  the  world;  and  the  vengeance  with  which  they  visit 
people  for  saying  they  don't  admire  or  like  them,  would  be 
really  terrible  if  the  said  people  were  but  as  mortally  afraid 
of  abuse  as  they  seemed  to  be.  I  would  not  advise  either  Mrs. 
Trollope,  Basil  Hall,  or  Captain  Hamilton,  ever  to  set  their 
feet  upon  this  ground  again,  unless  they  are  ambitious  of 
being  stoned  to  death." 

M.  de  Tocqueville  says : 3  — 

"Nothing  is  more  embarrassing,  in  the  ordinary  intercourse 
of  life,  than  this  irritable  patriotism  of  the  Americans.  A 
stranger  may  be  well  inclined  to  praise  many  of  the  institutions 
of  their  country,  but  he  begs  permission  to  blame  some  things 
in  it,  —  a  permission  which  is  inexorably  refused." 

It  is  a  different  phase  of  this  same  feeling  to  which 
Mr.  Howells  refers  when  he  asks  why  it  is  that  we 
Americans  insist,  when  abroad,  in  being  appreciated 
"in  the  lump."  Why  must  the  poor  alien  show  a 
fondness  for  the  whole  nation?  This  is  a  form  of 
sublimated  patriotism  which  we  do  not  practise  at 
home.  We  do  not  ourselves  like  Americans  "in 
the  lump."  After  our  tastes  and  sympathies  we 

1  Vol.  II,  p.  275. 

z  "Old  England  and  New  England,"  1853,  pp.  190-191. 
8  "  Democracy  in  America,"  p.  311. 


AMERICAN   SENSITIVENESS  103 

have  affections  and  likings  for  individuals.    We  do 
not  dote  on  the  totals  in  the  census. 

A  lecturer,  recently  here  from  Cambridge,  Eng- 
land, said  of  this  characteristic:  "We  Englishmen 
don't  care  a  rap  whether  England  is  liked  or  disliked 
as  a  nation.  We  like  some  human  beings  here  and 
there.  Some  Americans  quite  win  our  hearts,  just 
as  some  Englishmen  do.  But  I  won't  love  the  whole 
of  America  any  more  than  I  love  the  whole  pack  of 
my  own  countrymen."  This  is  clearly  what  we  all 
act  upon  in  our  ordinary  relations.  In  spite  of 
"Triple"  or  any  other  alliances,  no  nation  loves 
another  nation,  no  race  loves  another  race.  Can  we 
even  say  that  the  South  loves  the  North,  or  the  North 
the  South?  Does  the  East  love  the  West,  or  the 
West  the  East?  Does  Chicago  love  St.  Louis, 
Cleveland  grow  foolish  over  Cincinnati?  Why, 
then,  should  America  be  so  supersensitive  on  this 
point?  Why  should  Paul  Bourget  still  have  to  put 
it  into  his  French  text  that  we  are  so  "touchy"  — 
au  plus  haut  degre  "touchy"?  1 

Though  the  French  and  Germans  note  this  trait, 
such  natural  history  of  our  sensitiveness  as  can  be 
traced  has  far  more  to  do  with  our  Mother  Country 
than  with  that  of  any  other  or  all  others.  In  spite 
of  vehement  denial,  we  cared  about  English  opinion. 
The  historical  relation  with  England,  which  covers 
the  origin  and  close  of  two  wars  (1776  and  1812), 
did  not  wholly  create  this  touchiness,  but  it  helps 

1  "Outre-Mer,"  Vol.  I,  p.  68. 


104  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

much  to  explain  it.  It  is  altogether  impossible  at 
this  date  to  reproduce  the  enduring  bitterness  toward 
England  which  her  attitude  in  these  conflicts  pro- 
duced upon  the  American  people.  Almost  more 
than  the  wars  themselves  was  the  prevailing  tone 
of 'her  official  dealing  with  us,  as  well  as  the  more 
general  criticism  seen  in  the  last  chapter.  De 
Tocqueville,  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  the  War  of 
1812,  says  that  it  is  incredible  to  what  length  this 
hatred  of  England  went. 

It  is  to  the  popular  reading  habit  that  we  must  first 
look.  Dickens  finds  every  American  with  his  heels 
in  the  air  and  a  newspaper  in  his  hands.  What 
sort  of  message  did  these  readers  find  reprinted  for 
them  from  the  last  batch  of  English  papers  ?  It  was 
oftener  than  not  coarse  abuse  of  this  country.  Or 
it  was  a  half-insolent  ignoring  of  every  national 
aspiration,  and  this  was  more  galling  still.  It  is  a 
loyal  Englishman  who  speaks  of  his  own  country- 
men in  these  words : l  — 

"  But  it  is  just  his  calm,  supercilious  Philistinism, 
aggravated  no  doubt  by  his  many  years'  experience 
as  a  ruler  of  submissive  Orientals,  that  makes 
it  no  less  a  pleasure  than  a  duty  for  a  free  and 
intelligent  republican  to  resent  and  defy  his  criti- 
cism." 

Until  the  forties,  English  opinion  had  been  chiefly 
formed  by  books  like  those  of  Basil  Hall,  Hamilton, 
Dickens,  and  Mrs.  Trollope.  Books,  still  more 

1  "The  Land  of  Contrasts." 


AMERICAN   SENSITIVENESS  10$ 

recklessly  hostile,  like  those  of  Parkinson  and  Smyth, 
were  widely  read  by  their  countrymen.  For  years 
it  was  honestly  believed  in  this  country  that  vilifiers 
were  hired  by  the  British  Ministers  to  discredit  the 
United  States.  It  was,  of  course,  not  true,  but  that 
it  could  have  general  belief  indicates  the  state  of 
feeling.  It  was  also  among  our  honest  beliefs  that 
many  of  these  critics  were  here  to  gather  discourag- 
ing evidence  that  might  prevent  English  laborers 
from  coming  to  this  country.1  This  angered  a  certain 
class  of  employers  who  wanted  cheap  labor.  That 
it  was  the  adopted  English  policy  to  empty  her 
poorhouses,  orphan  and  insane  asylums  of  their 
inmates  and  ship  them  to  our  shores,  was  also  the 
commonest  belief,  and  a  belief  that  had  plenty  of 
apparently  good  evidence  to  sustain  it.  Indignant 
public  meetings  were  held,  with  many  investigations 
and  lurid  reports. 

A  fair  sample  of  these  reports  was  sent  to  the 
General  Assembly  in  Baltimore  (1831)  by  the  mayor 
and  city  council.  The  report  contained  these  words : 
"Of  one  thousand  one  hundred  and  sixty  persons 
admitted  to  the  almshouse  in  that  city  in  1831,  four 
hundred  and  eighty-seven  were  foreigners;  and  of 
this  number  two  hundred  and  eighty-one  had  been 

1  The  son  of  Napoleon's  general,  Achille  Murat,  believed  this, 
for  he  wrote  in  his  "Moral  and  Political  Sketch  of  the  United 
States,"  in  1827,  that  the  English  Minister,  wishing  to  stop  emigra- 
tion to  the  United  States,  descended  so  far  as  to  induce  mercenary 
writers  to  travel  and  promulgate  through  the  press  false  statements 
against  our  people  and  Government. 


106  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

in  the  country  less  than  six  months  prior  to  their 
admission,  and  one  hundred  and  twenty-one  less 
than  one  week." 

To  recount  these  various  sources  of  antipathy, 
jealousy,  and  misunderstanding  explains  much  of 
our  excessive  self-consciousness  under  English  criti- 
cism. I  have  heard  the  story  of  a  sturdy-minded 
sea-captain  on  Cape  Cod,  whose  boy  brought  word 
from  school  that  an  English  grammar  must  be  pur- 
chased. The  old  man,  who  lived  through  the  period  of 
1812,  shouted:  " An  English  grammar !  I  wouldn't 
have  the  thing  in  the  house.  You  will  buy  an 
American  grammar!"  January  17,  1808,  in  a 
despatch  to  Canning,  the  English  Minister  in  this 
country  mentioned  that  Congress  contained  one 
tailor,  one  weaver,  six  or  seven  tavern-keepers,  four 
notorious  swindlers,  one  butcher,  one  grazier,  one 
curer  of  hams,  and  several  schoolmasters  and  Baptist 
preachers.  The  tone  of  this  was  understood  to  be 
one  of  ill-concealed  contempt.  We  have  only  to 
imagine  amiabilities  like  this,  copied  in  half  the 
press  of  the  United  States,  to  understand  what  lively 
response  would  follow. 

Into  the  American  press  came  a  steady  stream  of 
such  quotations  from  English  opinions.  They  were 
patronizing,  contemptuous,  or  insulting,  according 
to  the  humor  of  the  writer.  For  more  than  a  genera- 
tion this  was  the  food  on  which  the  American  reader 
fed ;  De  Tocqueville's  word  "  incredible,"  as  applied 
to  these  angers,  is  none  too  strong. 


AMERICAN   SENSITIVENESS  1 07 

It  is  into  this  atmosphere  that  the  English  critic 
came.  Nor  is  there  much  change  until  the  nineteenth 
century  is  half  spent.  It  was  an  atmosphere  that 
heightened  every  one  of  our  faults.  It  quite  accounts 
for  our  early  "suspicion."  It  throws  a  good  deal  of 
light  on  our  bragging  habits.  The  English  traveller 
then  seemed  to  us  the  embodied  denial  of  every  demo- 
cratic ideal  that  we  cherished.  To  assert  ourselves 
against  this  chilling  influence  was  too  human  to  be 
avoided.  In  June,  1837,  Jared  Sparks  wrote  De 
Tocqueville  that  he  was  "vexed  and  mortified  that 
an  edition  of  your  '  Democratic '  has  not  yet  been 
published  in  America."  Our  newspapers  had  be- 
gun to  copy  extracts  from  English  reviews  which 
naturally  emphasized  De  Tocqueville's  more  critical 
remarks.  Mild  as  these  were,  they  were  enough  to 
create  an  instant  prejudice  against  the  book  in  the 
United  States. 

That  a  good  deal  of  this  criticism  was  true,  did 
not  sweeten  it  to  the  taste.  We  had  boldly  and  very 
conspicuously  set  up  imposing  ideals  of  political 
and  social  equality.  Without  the  least  restraint,  we 
had  raised  these  ideals  before  the  world  and  made 
them  the  object  of  lofty  and  continuous  declamation. 
It  was  therefore  very  rasping  to  have  the  ideals 
challenged.  A  yet  sharper  sting  was  in  the  frequent 
inquiry,  "If  you  have  a  land  of  equality  before  the 
law,  why  do  you  continue  slavery?"  To  the  North- 
erner this  passed  endurance,  and  he  usually  makes  a 
very  poor  figure  in  his  attempts  to  show  that  slavery 


108  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

doesn't  really  conflict  with  these  sacred  phrases 
about  liberty.  One  enraged  Yankee  replies  that 
only  a  blockhead  could  see  any  inconsistency  be- 
tween slavery  and  liberty,  and  "besides,  it's  only 
down  South,  anyhow."  An  Englishman  walking 
with  his  American  host  in  New  York,  in  1825,  sees 
the  announcement  of  a  dance  on  a  placard  bearing 
the  words,  "No  colored  people  admitted."  The 
guest  says  he  remarked  innocently,  "  It's  pretty  hard 
to  practise  equality,  isn't  it?"  Whereupon  his 
entertainer  lost  temper  and  said,  "The  Europeans 
are  so  spoiled  by  flunkeyism  that  they  can't  under- 
stand liberty  when  they  see  it." 

Our  treatment  of  the  Indians  also  gave  rise  to 
many  tart  passages,  as  did  our  rancor  and  inhuman- 
ity against  the  Catholics  which  culminated  in  the 
burning  of  the  nunnery  in  Charlestown. 

There  were  indeed,  at  most  periods  when  our 
visitors  were  present,  some  troublesome  illustrations 
that  seemed  to  give  the  lie  to  our  fine  speaking  and 
writing.  That  Harriet  Martineau,  for  instance, 
should  come  into  Boston  on  the  very  day  when 
Garrison  was  being  dragged  through  the  streets 
was  awkward  enough.  She  had  given  great  atten- 
tion before  her  coming  to  our  political  history  and 
development.  What  interested  her  from  the  first 
was  the  Theory  and  Practice  in  our  life  and 
institutions.  Here  was  her  first  rude  shock.  In 
this  "land  of  the  free"  was  liberty  of  speech  so 
brutally  denied?  If  men  were  thus  assaulted,  was 


AMERICAN   SENSITIVENESS  109 

there  no  law?  It  was  an  eminent  college  president 
who  tried  to  soothe  her  in  her  disappointment. 
He  insisted  that  "it  was  all  right,  —  the  mob  having 
been  entirely  composed  of  gentlemen"  Lawyers  tell 
her  that  nothing  can  be  done  about  it.  "Ladies 
were  sure  that  the  gentlemen  of  Boston  would  do 
nothing  improper."  "Merchants  thought  the  aboli- 
tionists were  served  quite  right."  "What  would 
become  of  trade  if  such  agitators  were  allowed  to 
anger  the  South?"  "Clergymen  excuse  themselves 
because  the  whole  subject  is  so  'low.'"  She  writes 
further,  "And  even  Judge  Story,  when  I  asked  him 
whether  there  was  not  a  public  prosecutor  who  might 
prosecute  for  the  assault  on  Garrison,  if  the  aboli- 
tionists did  not,  replied  that  he  had  given  his  advice 
(which  had  been  formally  asked)  against  any  notice 
whatever  being  taken  of  the  outrage,  —  the  feeling 
being  so  strong  against  the  discussion  of  slavery  and 
the  rioters  being  so  respectable  in  the  city."  1 

Here  was  the  rough  awakening  to  this  noble 
woman.  As  one  sees  in  Mrs.  Chapman's  Memoirs, 
Miss  Martineau  was  capable  of  commanding  moral 
courage.2  She  had  every  hospitality  that  Boston 
and  Cambridge  could  offer,  but  she  did  not  flinch 
from  criticising  these  open  affronts  upon  liberty, 
law,  and  order.  That  the  highest  social  and  edu- 
cational respectability  should  lead  in  these  attacks 
added  gall  to  her  pen.  Her  plain  speaking  stung 

1  "Autobiography,"  Vol.  II,  p.  24. 

2  "Autobiography,"  Vol.  II,  p.  30. 


110  AS    OTHERS   SEE   US 

Boston  to  the  quick.  It  at  once  became  the  habit  to 
belittle  her  book  and  abuse  her  personally.  When 
Captain  Marryat  came,  he  found  her  referred  to  as 
"  that  deaf  old  woman  with  the  trumpet."  He  was 
assured  that  "her  volumes  were  full  of  blunders ;  that 
her  entertainers  really  had  great  fun  in  telling  her  big 
stories  which  were  solemnly  written  down."  One 
eminent  individual  brings  Miss  Martineau's  book 
to  Marryat,  who  says  that  he  was  "excessively  de- 
lighted when  he  pointed  out  to  me  two  pages  of 
fallacies,  which  he  had  told  her  with  a  grave  face 
and  which  she  had  duly  recorded  and  printed."  l 

It  was  in  this  spirit  that  the  injured  self-love  of  the 
community  took  its  revenge.  It  was  very  human, 
but  rather  petty  and  ignoble.  There  are  errors  in 
Miss  Martineau's  book  and  too  much  dogmatism. 
But  at  that  time  not  two  books  had  been  written 
on  the  United  States  so  full  of  truth,  so  enriched 
by  careful  observation  and  stated  with  more  so- 
briety.2 

I  enlarge  upon  this  special  experience  because  it 
faithfully  represents  that  of  many  other  visitors. 

1  "Diary  in  America,"  1839,  p.  9. 

2  That  a  college  with  religious  traditions  like  those  of  Welles- 
ley  should  honor  itself,  as  it  honors  Miss  Martineau,  by  giving  her 
statue  so  conspicuous  a  place  in  that  institution,  is  the  happiest  sign 
of  enlarging  intellectual  life.     There  are  those  living  who  remem- 
ber her  well  and  the  obloquy  that  was  heaped  upon  her.     She  was 
an  object  of  "  moral  vituperation."     She  was  a  "  coarse  infidel "  and 
even  a  "hardened  atheist."     She  was  a  "trifler  with  truth  and  all 
sacred  things"  who  "could  not  even  write  a  single  page  without 
several  misstatements." 


AMERICAN   SENSITIVENESS  III 

We  had  called  so  much  attention  to  our  political 
and  social  principles,  had  so  emphasized  their 
superiorities,  and,  at  the  same  time,  had  taken  such 
mocking  liberties  with  the  corresponding  ideals 
among  our  effete  neighbors  in  Europe  that  we  laid 
ourselves  bare  to  every  shaft  of  the  enemy.  Were 
we  actually  realizing  these  ideals  of  liberty,  justice, 
and  equality  with  a  success  that  justified  our  tone? 
Were  our  manners,  morals,  and  social  virtues,  as 
set  forth  by  the  "cannon  oratory"  of  July  Fourth 
or  by  the  politicians  asking  for  votes,  quite  up  to 
the  representations  ?  We  had  ourselves  some  search- 
ing doubts  on  this  point.  No  one  probably  knew 
better  than  we  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  bun- 
combe in  these  pretensions.  It  was  this  uneasy 
consciousness  of  the  gap  between  our  proclaimed 
ideals  and  our  observed  social  and  political  practices 
that  created  and  maintained  a  great  part  of  our 
"  supersensitiveness "  as  a  people.  This  condition 
was  also  a  kind  of  hothouse  in  which  our  spirit  of 
boasting  reached  its  luxuriant  growths.  Both  the 
sensitiveness  and  the  bragging  have  diminished, 
partly  at  least,  because  we  have  been  disciplined  into 
a  little  humility.  With  many  triumphs  have  come 
some  sobering  defeats.  We  have  learned  to  look  at 
our  whole  community  life  with  fewer  illusions.  The 
Civil  War,  with  its  long  aftermath  of  paralyzing 
difficulties,  was  the  first  awakening.  That  event, 
with  the  unavoidable  blundering  that  followed  far 
into  the  seventies,  taught  us  the  delicate  complexity 


112  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

of  our  political  traditions;  taught  us  slowly  that 
conflicting  views  on  the  most  fundamental  issues 
could  be  honestly  held,  and  that  multitudes  would 
die  as  bravely  as  ever  men  died  to  maintain  those 
views.  From  the  hard  experience  of  that  quarter 
of  a  century,  both  North  and  South  learned  im- 
measurably through  the  wwlearning  of  prejudices. 
The  South  had  to  learn  the  meaning  of  nationality. 
It  had  to  learn  all  that  is  meant  by  a  reorganized 
industrial  life  with  its  necessary  readjustments  to 
the  country  as  a  whole.  The  North  had  surely  no 
less  to  learn  and  to  unlearn.  Tardily  she  came  to 
recognize  that  the  struggle  in  the  Southland  was  not 
solely  to  save  slave  property.  That  quite  apart  from 
this,  there  was  an  idealism  which  all  fair  men  now 
honor  and  history  will  respect.  After  the  war,  the 
North  had  to  learn  within  what  narrow  limits  force 
is  a  remedy,  just  as  she  had  to  learn  that  the  South 
must  be  governed  by  what  is  best  in  the  South,  and 
as  for  all  that  is  implied  in  the  "negro  question," 
the  North  had  to  learn  its  main  lesson  as  a  child  has 
to  learn  its  alphabet.  The  intellectual  and  moral 
adjustment  to  the  whole  legacy  of  war  problems  has 
steadied  and  disciplined  us  as  a  nation. 

Not  wholly  separated  from  the  teaching  of  this 
inheritance  is  the  educational  effect  upon  us  of  dif- 
ficulties that  seem  inherent  between  the  Federal 
Government  and  the  several  States.  It  is  not  alone 
the  murdered  Italians  in  New  Orleans  and  the 
confessed  helplessness  of  the  Government  to  enforce 


CAPTAIN  MARRYAT 
English  Novelist  and  Critic  of  American  Institutions 


AMERICAN    SENSITIVENESS  113 

justice  or  the  reverberations  from  California  over 
the  Japanese  in  public  schools ;  it  is  a  whole  nest  of 
practical  industrial  and  social  problems  that  are 
seen  to  be  grave  because  of  our  political  structure. 
Sobering,  too,  are  our  immigration  and  Philippine 
problems  with  all  that  we  are  coming  to  associate 
with  those  heavy  responsibilities. 

These  collective  experiences  have  done  much  to 
show  most  thoughtful  Americans  that  our  deeper 
problems  are  not  solved  solely  because  of  our  form 
of  government.  Neither  universal  suffrage  nor 
popular  education  has  worked  half  the  wonders  that 
were  expected  of  them.  Better  still,  we  are  learning 
how  futile  a  thing  is  the  mere  legislative  act,  unless 
the  will  of  a  dedicated  citizenship  lives  in  the  enact- 
ment. In  not  one  of  these  ideals  has  the  light  of 
our  faith  gone  out,  but  a  certain  levity  and  brisk- 
ness in  our  optimism  has  been  subdued.  It  is  no 
longer  a  fatality  that  works  independent  of  our 
own  acts. 

We  were  reproved  some  years  ago  by  a  French 
guest  for  lacking  "objectivity."  In  this  academic 
dialect,  he  wished  to  inform  us  that  we  were 
sentimental  about  ourselves;  too  self-centred  and 
without  much  capacity  to  see  and  criticise  ourselves, 
as  other  people  see  us  and  criticise  us.  This,  too, 
was  doubtless  true,  but  it  is  surely  a  little  less  true 
in  the  later  years. 

It  is  not  a  generation  since  Matthew  Arnold  wrote 
of  the  "American  rhapsody  of  self-praise."  In  the 


IT4  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

"elevated,"  the  "beautiful,"  and  the  "interesting," 
he  found  our  civilization  in  the  United  States  lacking. 
He  thought  this  lack  unavoidable  and  natural,  but 
saw  it  as  an  evil  sign  that  we  were  sensitive  and 
petulant  when  so  obvious  a  truth  about  us  was  set 
down  by  the  foreigner. 

He  said  if  we  would  only  be  frank  about  these 
shortcomings,  and  acknowledge  that  the  rule  of  "the 
average  man  is  a  danger,"  no  fair  observer  would 
find  fault.  "Even  if  a  number  of  leading  lights 
amongst  them  said,"  he  continues,  "Under  the  cir- 
cumstances our  civilization  could  not  well  have  been 
expected  to  begin  differently.  What  you  see  are 
beginnings:  they  are  crude,  they  are  too  predomi- 
nantly material,  they  omit  much,  leave  much  to  be 
desired  —  but  they  could  not  have  been  otherwise. 
They  have  been  inevitable,  and  we  will  rise  above 
them ;  if  the  Americans  frankly  said  this,  one  would 
not  have  a  word  to  bring  against  them."  l 

The  test  which  this  passage  submits,  we  may 
accept  without  the  slightest  misgiving.  The  rare 
distinctions  of  beauty,  elevation,  and  the  "interest- 
ing" were  lacking  in  our  civilization.  They  are 
still  unachieved,  but  many  more  than  "some  leading 
spirits"  now  know  this  limitation  and  acknowledge 
it.  The  last  quarter  of  a  century  has  produced  a 
literature  of  self-criticism  and  self-accusation  that 
fully  meets  Arnold's  test.  Bryce's  first  visit  was  a 
few  years  after  the  war.  He  was  here  again  in  1883. 

1  "Civilization  in  the  United  States,"  pp.  9,  182. 


AMERICAN   SENSITIVENESS  115 

He  says  that  between  those  dates  the  oversensitive- 
ness  "had  sensibly  diminished."  In  1905  he  could 
say  more  strongly  still  that  the  early  bounds  to  our 
optimism  have  become  "very  different  from  self- 
righteousness  or  vainglory." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  MOTHER  COUNTRY  AS  CRITIC 

IF  it  is  true  that  no  quarrel  may  take  on  more 
virulence  than  that  within  one's  own  family,  the 
fact  accounts  for  the  extreme  rancor  of  feeling  against 
England  that  continued  a  generation  after  the  War 
of  1812.  I  do  not  see  in  the  evidence  a  sign  that 
England  "hated  the  United  States,"  as  was  so  often 
said.  Until  after  the  Civil  War  we  were  not  thought 
important  enough  to  inspire  that  feeling.  She  had 
merely  an  unintelligent  contempt  for  us.  This 
led  her  to  ignore  or  to  trample  on  every  sensitive 
nerve  in  the  national  body.  Sir  George  Otto 
Trevelyan,  who  justifies  our  Revolution  of  '76  in 
three  volumes  with  an  extreme  of  gallantry  that 
excites  some  astonishment,  uses  a  truer  word  to 
characterize  the  English  feeling  —  "antipathy."  He 
says  that  the  uniform  picture  of  our  character  was 
"daubed  in  colors  which  resembled  the  original  as 
little  as  they  matched  each  other."  The  men  of 
Massachusetts  were  said  to  be  "sly  and  turbulent, 
puritans  and  scoundrels,  pugnacious  ruffians  and 
arrant  cowards."  That  was  the  constant  theme  of 
the  newspapers  and  the  favorite  topic  of  those 
officers  of  the  army  of  occupation  whose  letters  had 

116 


THE    MOTHER   COUNTRY    AS   CRITIC  1 17 

gone  the  round  of  London  clubs  and  English  country 
houses.  "The  archives  of  the  Secretary  of  State 
were  full  of  trite  calumnies  and  foolish  prophecies."  l 
It  was  the  worse  because,  he  says,  the  governing 
classes  had  the  least  understanding  of  us.  They 
represented  the  Americans  as  a  "tumultuous  rabble 
meddling  with  affairs  of  state  which  they  were 
unable  to  understand."  2 

The  touch  of  Matthew  Arnold  is  perhaps  just  as 
true  when  he  says :  — 

"The  British  rule  which  they  threw  off  was  not  one  of 
oppressors  and  tyrants  which  declaimers  suppose,  and  the 
merit  of  the  Americans  was  not  that  of  oppressed  men  rising 
against  tyrants,  but  rather  of  sensible  young  people  getting 
rid  of  stupid  and  overweening  guardians  who  misunderstood 
and  mismanaged  them."  * 

It  was  this  "stupid  and  overweening"  mismanage- 
ment and  misunderstanding  of  national  feeling  in 
the  United  States  that  was  England's  real  fault. 
On  our  side  there  was  plenty  of  rancor  and  plain 
hatred.  The  evidence  has  to  be  supplemented  by 
the  "national  sensitiveness,"  with  which  the  last 
chapter  dealt,  before  it  is  quite  possible  to  appreciate 
the  malignity  which  early  English  criticism  stirred 
in  this  country.  It  would  be  ill-advised  to  call  up 
these  chattering  ghosts,  if  both  nations  had  not  now 
grown  sensible  enough  and  strong  enough  to  join 

1  "The  American  Revolution,"  Part  I,  p.  176. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  178. 

8  "Civilization  in  the  United  States,"  p.  116. 


Il8  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

in  the  laugh  against  those  musty  and  heavy-witted 
animosities.  If  England  exhibited  an  incredible 
lack  of  tact  as  to  everything  which  concerned  popular 
feeling  in  this  country,  we  too  were  often  overfussy 
and  childish  about  our  prerogatives.  Under  the 
subject  of  American  supersensitiveness,  we  have 
seen  how  the  newspaper  habit  among  our  people 
brought  a  steady  down-pour  of  galling  criticism  from 
British  sources.  Nothing  corresponding  to  this  was 
happening  in  England,  for  ordinary  folk. 

A  small  part  of  the  cultivated  classes  in  England 
read  the  books  written  by  their  travellers.1  In  the 
great  reviews,  men  of  letters  like  Sydney  Smith  and 
Gifford  were  using  this  collected  material  to  put  us 
on  the  rack.  The  lengths  to  which  these  leaders  of 
English  opinion  went  will  be  believed  by  no  one  who 
does  not  look  at  the  record.  The  Edinburgh  Quar- 
terly, Black-wood,  and  the  British  Review  were  all 
in  it,  as  if  there  were  a  conspiracy  to  make  the 
United  States  an  object  of  common  obloquy.  It 
was  believed  in  this  country  that  the  Poet  Laureate 
Southey  wrote  one  of  the  most  contemptuous  of 
these  articles.  The  great  Wordsworth  penned  lines 
like  the  following :  — 

"All  who  revere  the  memory  of  Penn 
Grieve  for  the  land  on  whose  wild  woods  his  name 
Was  fondly  grafted  with  a  virtuous  aim, 

1  Chevalier  says,  "Almost  all  English  travellers  in  this  country 
have  seen  a  great  deal  that  was  bad  and  scarcely  anything  that  is 
good."  —  p.  106. 


THE    MOTHER  COUNTRY    AS    CRITIC  1 19 

Renounced,  abandoned,  by  degenerate  men, 

For  state-dishonor  black  as  ever  came 

To  upper  air  from  Mammon's  loathsome  den." 

Again  he  puts  into  his  gentle  cadence  such  opinions 
about  our  society  as  this :  — 

"Big  passions  strutting  on  a  petty  stage 
Which  a  detached  spectator  may  regard 
Not  unamused.     But  ridicule  demands 
Quick  change  of  objects;  and  to  laugh  alone 
In  the  very  centre  of  the  crowd 
To  keep  the  secret  of  a  poignant  scorn,"  etc. 

This  venerable  seer  did  not  get  his  "poignant 
scorn"  from  local  observation,  but  wholly  from 
what  English  books  and  travellers  had  told  him. 

We  had  our  own  sins  in  this  tradition  of  ill-will. 
We  cannot  omit  minor  irritants  like  the  scandalous 
behavior  of  some  of  our  states  in  the!  non-payment 
of  their  debts.  It  was  this  which  gave  venom  to  the 
slurs  of  Sydney  Smith  and  the  poet  Wordsworth.1 
It  was  this  which  rankled  in  the  minds  of  hundreds 
of  English  investors,  and  was  so  savagely  reflected 
in  at  least  ten  years  of  this  criticism.  Nothing  more 
nettled  Americans  than  the  English  habit  of  scourg- 
ing the  entire  country  for  the  sins  of  exceptional 
states.  To  include  Massachusetts,  with  her  honor- 
able record,  in  the  same  category  with  the  shame 
of  Mississippi  seemed  to  inhabitants  of  the  state 
which  paid  its  debt  an  outrage  on  the  country  as 
a  whole. 

1  See  Sonnets  VIII  and  IX,  Vol.  IV,  "Poetical  Works,"  Bos- 
ton, 1864. 


120  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

Neither  can  the  natural  wrath  of  the  English  over 
our  long  pirating  of  their  books  go  unmentioned. 
The  historian  Sparks  had  a  correspondence  with  De 
Tocqueville  about  the  delays  and  difficulties  in  getting 
his  book  published  in  this  country.  He  finds  it 
unpleasant  to  explain  why  the  author  could  expect 
no  money  from  the  publisher.  An  English  author 
refuses  to  set  foot  in  this  country  because  of  this 
"organized  national  thieving."  Kipling  reveals  this 
feeling  in  the  following :  — 

"Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  says  that  the  Yankee  schoolmarm, 
the  cider,  and  the  salt  codfish  of  the  Eastern  States  are  re- 
sponsible for  what  he  calls  a  nasal  accent.  I  know  better. 
They  stole  books  from  across  the  water  without  paying  for 
'em,  and  the  snort  of  delight  was  fixed  in  their  nostrils  forever 
by  a  just  Providence.  That  is  why  they  talk  a  foreign  tongue 
to-day."  1 

These  incidental  raspings  do  not,  however,  account 
for  the  main  trouble. 

As  early  as  1814  the  Quarterly  Review  began  this 
"crusade  of  vituperation."  We  were  depicted  as  a 
people  devoid  of  every  common  decency.  We  had 
neither  religion,  manners,  nor  morals.  The  replies 
of  Timothy  Dwight  and  J.  K.  Paulding  published  in 
New  York,  1815,  stimulated  counter  attacks  in 
later  English  reviews. 

We  did  not  like  being  told  that  our  ships  could 
not  fight;  that  the  "Frolic  surrendered  without 
firing  a  shot";  that  we  were  "the  most  vain,  ego- 

1  "American  Notes,"  p.  20,  Boston,  1899. 


THE    MOTHER    COUNTRY    AS    CRITIC  121 

tistical,  insolent,  rodomontade  sort  of  people  that 
are  anywhere  to  be  found";  that  "the  supreme 
felicity  of  a  true-born  American  is  inaction  of  body 
and  inactivity  of  mind."  We  were  "techy,"  "way- 
ward," and  "abandoned  to  bad  nurses,"  and,  like 
spoiled  children,  "educated  to  low  habits."  The 
Quarterly  Review  printed  pleasantries  like  these. 
Franklin  was  idolized  among  us  for  gifts  that  are 
thus  characterized  in  that  Review : — 

"Franklin,  in  grinding  his  electrical  machine  and  flying  his 
kite,  did  certainly  elicit  some  useful  discoveries  in  a  branch  of 
science  that  had  not  much  engaged  the  attention  of  the  philoso- 
phers of  Europe.  But  the  foundation  of  Franklin's  knowledge 
was  laid  not  in  America,  but  in  London.  Besides,  half  of 
what  he  wrote  was  stolen  from  others,  and  the  greater  part  of 
the  rest  was  not  worth  preserving."  l 

We  were  "too  proud  to  learn  and  too  ignorant  to 
teach,  and  having  established  by  act  of  Congress 
that  they  are  already  the  most  enlightened  people 
in  the  world,  they  bid  fair  to  retain  their  barbarism 
from  mere  regard  to  consistency."  This  insolent 
ribaldry  is  not  from  the  pens  of  hungry  journalists. 
It  is  the  expressed  conviction  of  literary  and  socially 
distinguished  men.  It  continued  pretty  steadily  for 
a  generation.  Here  are  a  few  titbits  from  the 
Foreign  Quarterly  as  late  as  1844.  We  have: 
"Swagger  and  impudence";  "As  yet  the  American 
is  horn-handed  and  pig-headed,  hard,  persevering, 
unscrupulous,  carnivorous ;  with  a  genius  for  lying." 

1  Quarterly  Review,  No.  20. 


122  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

We  are  a  "brigand  confederation";  "Outrage 
and  disorder  and  naked  licentiousness"  were  rife, 
and  everywhere  was  "that  depravity  that  rots  like 
a  canker  at  the  core  of  American  society." 

Thomas  Brothers  concludes  thus,  "I  believe  there 
to  be  in  the  United  States  more  taxation,  poverty, 
and  general  oppression  than  ever  known  in  any  other 
country."  1 

Three  years  later  Dickens  wrote,  "That  republic 
but  yesterday  let  loose  upon  her  noble  course,  and 
to-day  so  maimed  and  lame,  so  full  of  sores  and  ulcers, 
that  her  best  friends  turn  from  the  loathsome  creature 
in  disgust." 

There  were  nearly  ten  years  of  this  inflamed 
scurrility  before  an  attempt  was  made  in  Black-wood's 
Magazine  to  counteract  the  harm  done  by  this 
English  tone.  A  writer  then  warned  the  English 
that  they  would  "turn  into  bitterness  the  last  drops 
of  good-will  toward  England  that  exist  in  the  United 
States."  2 

One  of  the  most  careful  of  our  critics  who  studied 
us  for  three  years  felt  this  danger.  He  cries  out :  — 

"Why,  in  God's  name,  should  we  not  give  every  assurance 
of  respect  and  affection  ?  Are  they  not  our  children,  blood  of 
our  blood  and  bone  of  our  bone?  Are  they  not  progressive, 

1  "The  United  States  of  North  America  as  They  Are,"  p.  228, 
Thomas  Brothers,  London,  1840. 

2  A  little  earlier  this  magazine  said,  — 

"  The  tendencies  of  our  Constitution  toward  democracy  have 
been  checked  solely  by  the  view  of  the  tattered  and  insolent  guise 
in  which  republicanism  had  appeared  in  America." 


THE    MOTHER   COUNTRY    AS   CRITIC  123 

and  fond  of  power,  like  ourselves?  Are  they  not  our  best 
customers?  Have  they  not  the  same  old  English,  manly 
virtues?  What  is  more  befitting  for  us  Englishmen  than  to 
watch  with  intense  study  and  deepest  sympathy  the  momen- 
tous strivings  of  this  noble  people  ?  It  is  the  same  fight  we 
ourselves  are  fighting —  the  true  and  absolute  supremacy  of 
Right.  Surely  nothing  can  more  beseem  two  great  and 
kindred  nations  than  to  aid  and  comfort  one  another  in  that 
career  of  self -ennoblement,  which  is  the  end  of  all  national  as 
well  as  individual  existence."  * 

There  is  pathos,  too,  in  the  words  of  Washington 
Irving :  — 

"Is  this  golden  bond  of  kindred  sympathies,  so  rare  between 
nations,  to  be  broken  forever?  Perhaps  it  is  for  the  best:  it 
may  dispel  an  illusion  which  might  have  kept  us  in  mental  vas- 
salage; which  might  have  interfered  occasionally  with  our 
true  interests,  and  prevented  the  growth  of  proper  national 
pride.  But  it  is  hard  to  give  up  the  kindred  tie;  and  there 
are  feelings  dearer  than  interest,  closer  to  the  heart  than  pride, 
that  will  still  make  us  cast  back  a  look  of  regret,  as  we  wander 
farther  and  farther  from  the  paternal  roof,  and  lament  the 
waywardness  of  the  parent  that  would  repel  the  affections  of 
the  child." 

It  is  clear  to  us  at  this  distance  that  these  English 
reviewers  got  a  genuine  pleasure  out  of  the  books 
which  most  roundly  abused  us  (Fearon,  Brothers, 
Welby,  Ashe,  Harris,  Faux,  and  Bradbury).  We 
had  won  our  independence,  and  made  it  extremely 
uncomfortable  for  England  in  1812.  Her  prestige 
and  national  vanity  had  suffered  from  these  events. 
She  suffered  the  more  because  of  the  trumpet  tones 

1  James  Sterling,  "Letters  from  the  Slave  States." 


124  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

in  which  we  bragged  over  these  victories.  They 
were  organized  into  permanent  memorials  about 
which  the  high  tides  of  oratory,  song,  and  editorials 
flowed  and  ebbed  as  if  by  force  of  nature.  An 
Englishman,  unhappy  enough  to  arrive  here  a  few 
days  before  July  4,  1819,  writes :  — 

"I  know  we  came  off  rather  lamely  in  the  Revolutionary 
War,  but  I  never  realized  before  that  we  began  by  being 
cowards  and  bullies  and  ended  by  being  annihilated  in  every 
fight.  I  had  always  supposed  we  English  whipped  them  at 
Bunker  Hill,  but  these  Yankees  have  turned  it  into  a  victory 
that  ranks  with  Thermopylae  and  Waterloo.  Even  our  Eng- 
lish warships  were  swept  from  the  sea,  and  men  that  I  never 
heard  of  are  greater  than  Nelson  at  Trafalgar." 

As  one  follows  these  Englishmen  about,  it  is 
impossible  to  withhold  sympathy  for  them.  There 
was  not  the  slightest  hesitation  in  rubbing  in  all 
the  old  victories  and  in  all  ways  belittling  English 
behavior  in  both  wars. 

Nor  was  our  form  of  government  less  irritating, 
especially  when  we  insisted  that  the  poor  foreigner 
should  forthwith  admire  it.  De  Tocqueville  inti- 
mates that  his  approval  would  have  had  freer 
expression,  if  he  had  not  been  so  insistently  expected 
to  approve.  Our  democracy  was  itself  an  affront 
to  all  Tory  sentiment.  Whether  it  were  to  succeed 
or  fail,  it  was  an  embodied  challenge  to  the  mother 
country.  It  was  not  merely  the  dropping  of  a  king 
and  a  hereditary  House  of  Lords,  but  the  separation 
of  Church  and  State,  the  doing  away  with  primo- 


THE   MOTHER    COUNTRY  AS   CRITIC  125 

geniture  and  property  qualification  for  the  vote,  the 
wide  extension  of  the  suffrage,  which  seemed  to 
strike  at  what  were  fundamental  and  venerated 
English  traditions.  There  is  a  strong  passage  in 
Trevelyan  which  runs  thus :  — 

"  But  in  order  to  comprehend  a  policy  which  lay  so  far  out- 
side the  known  and  ordinary  limits  of  human  infatuation,  it 
must  never  be  forgotten  that  there  was  a  deeper  and  a  more 
impassable  gulf  than  the  Atlantic  between  the  colonists  and 
their  rulers.  If  Cabinet  Ministers  at  home  had  known  the 
Americans  better,  they  would  only  have  loved  them  less.  The 
higher  up  in  the  peerage  an  Englishman  stood,  and  the  nearer 
to  influence  and  power,  the  more  unlikely  it  was  that  he  would 
be  in  sympathy  with  his  brethren  across  the  seas,  or  that  he 
would  be  capable  of  respecting  their  susceptibilities,  and  of 
apprehending  their  virtues,  which  were  less  to  his  taste  even 
than  their  imperfections."  l 

The  English  statesman,  John  Morley,  has  this 
striking  confirmation  of  these  words  in  discussing 
Maine's  "Popular  Government":  — 

"The  success  of  popular  government  across  the  Atlantic 
has  been  the  strongest  incentive  to  the  extension  of  popular 
government  here.  We  need  go  no  farther  back  than  the 
Reform  Bill  of  1867  to  remind  ourselves  that  the  victory  of 
the  North  over  the  South  had  more  to  do  with  the  concession 
of  the  franchise  to  householders  in  boroughs  than  all  the  elo- 
quence of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  all  the  diplomacies  of  Mr. 
Disraeli."  2 

We  have  learned,  as  in  the  case  of  murdered 
Italians  in  Louisiana  and  affronted  Japanese  in 

1  Part  I,  pp.  44  and  45. 

2  "Studies  in  Literature,"  pp.  125-126. 


126  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

California,  that  our  states  are  related  to  the  Federal 
Government  in  ways  that  have  been  an  honest 
perplexity  to  all  foreigners,  as  they  are  becoming 
a  very  serious  perplexity  to  ourselves. 

During  the  period  we  are  considering,  there  was 
practically  no  conception  of  this  relation  of  state  to 
the  central  government  among  the  critics  whose  cen- 
sure was  most  resented.  We  can  therefore  at  last 
not  only  understand,  but  make  some  measure  of  al- 
lowance for  the  caviller.  We  can  even  forgive  that 
shining  wit,  Sydney  Smith,  for  saying  that  all  our 
literature  was  imported ;  that  Franklin's  fame  might 
possibly  last  for  fifty  years ;  and  that  "prairies,  steam- 
boats, grist-mills"  were  our  proper  heritage. 

This  long  wordy  tiff,  with  much  spite  and  heart- 
burning in  it,  continued  until  the  middle  of  the 
century.  The  shrill  note  of  it  begins  then  to  soften, 
partly,  I  think,  because  so  many  sensible  men  on 
both  sides  became  tired  and  ashamed  of  it.  Its 
humiliation  was  that  cultivated  men  should  lend 
themselves  to  such  a  cause.  Among  the  average 
mass  of  men,  anything  like  international  amenity 
and  real  understanding  is  but  just  beginning  on  the 
earth.  Think  of  two  nations  as  advanced  as  Eng- 
land and  France  living  century  after  century  hard 
by  each  other,  and  until  the  most  recent  years  having 
merely  contempt  for  each  other;  the  average  Eng- 
lishman thinking  that  a  Frenchman  was  a  kind  of 
monkey  with  clothes  on,  and  that  chiefly  because 
he  had  a  different  manner  and  speech  from  the 


THE   MOTHER   COUNTRY    AS   CRITIC  127 

English.  Though  from  the  same  trunk  and  with  a 
common  speech,  there  was  almost  as  much  misappre- 
hension between  England  and  this  country.  It  was 
not  caused  by  primitive  race  antagonism  or  too  close 
national  rivalry,  as  between  England  and  France. 
The  misunderstanding  was,  nevertheless,  quite  as 
natural  and  probably  as  inevitable. 

In  Chapter  VIII  we  shall  see  it  passing  away  for 
reasons  that  are  humorous  in  their  simplicity ;  chiefly 
because  so  many  people  in  both  countries  have  seen 
each  other  closely  enough  and  often  enough  to  gain 
a  common  respect  one  for  the  other.  A  distinguished 
Englishman  who  has  just  been  lecturing  in  this 
country  put  a  world  of  good  sense  into  these  words, 
"I  would  not  have  believed  that  six  weeks'  good 
fellowship  here  in  the  States  could  have  burned  all 
out  of  me  the  amount  of  ignorance  and  prejudice 
that  I  brought  to  this  country."  That  has  happened 
to  many  thousands  in  both  countries  since  the  Civil 
War.  This  intelligent  sympathy  was  never  increas- 
ing so  rapidly  as  at  present,  and  it  will  continue  with 
growing  hopefulness  in  the  future.  At  least  with 
peoples  not  too  widely  separated  by  cultural  stages, 
this  elementary  understanding  has  infinite  promise. 
The  possibilities  and  business  necessities  of  modern 
travel  are  rapidly  doing  this  fundamental  work  of 
making  people  so  far  known  to  each  other,  as  to 
train  them  into  neighborly  habits  and  into  a  tolera- 
tion of  superficial  differences. 

The  chief  change  in  this  history  of  criticism  is  that 


128  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

we  have  now  reached  a  stage  in  which  men  of  en- 
larged experience  are  writing  books  for  the  express 
purpose  of  creating  an  intelligent  good-will  among 
nations.  Into  this  purposed  brotherhood  come 
men  like  Bryce,  Trevelyan,  Archer,  Muirhead, 
Munsterberg,  Abbe*  Klein,  Von  Polenz,  De  Rousier, 
with  an  interpreting  message,  every  line  of  which  is 
an  added  tie  of  friendly  feeling  and  tolerance  among 
peoples  isolated  by  geographic  lines  but  sundered 
even  more  by  prejudice  and  ignorance.  In  the 
common  darkness  of  this  national  and  race  misun- 
derstanding, the  devil's  main  work  is  now  carried  on 
in  our  present  world.  In  this  misunderstanding  are 
the  sustaining  roots  of  the  immense  stupidity  which 
still  assumes  that  the  permanent  good  of  this  or  that 
nation  is  bought  at  the  price  of  some  other  people's 
discomfiture  or  undoing.  From  the  same  source 
spring  the  low  cruelties  of  modern  warfare.  Our 
continued  bungling  with  defective  children,  de- 
linquent youth,  and  large  classes  of  criminals  will 
end  only  when  we  learn  to  understand.  Some  brave 
steps  have  been  taken  toward  this  saving  tolerance. 
Upon  its  extension  at  home  and  abroad  depends 
all  that  is  meant  by  the  word  civilization. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CHANGE  OF  TONE  IN  FOREIGN  CRITICISM 

THE  changes  noted  in  this  chapter  are  largely 
English,  although  French  writers  like  Bourget, 
Madame  Blanc,  and  Paul  Adam;  Germans  like 
Munsterberg,  Von  Polenz,  and  Grillenberger,  indi- 
cate a  corresponding  change  of  temper.  The  con- 
descension is  gone,  or  is  rapidly  disappearing.  The 
visitor  is  studying  a  people  that  may  disturb  and 
irritate  him,  but  our  rough  beginnings  have  taken 
on  proportions  that  command  a  new  kind  of  atten- 
tion. It  is  not  so  much  what  we  have  definitely 
achieved,  as  it  is  the  unmistakable  promise  of  achieve- 
ment, that  arouses  new  homage.  For  a  half  century 
there  has  been  no  question  of  our  material  exploits. 
These  have  had  compliments  and  marvelling  enough. 
It  is  the  whole  cultural  side  of  life  in  the  United 
States  that  has  been  put  in  question.  Could  we 
create  literature,  develop  science,  paint  pictures; 
could  we  reach  first-rate  educational  standards  or 
even  learn  to  appreciate  the  best  music?  Values 
like  these,  with  softened  manners  and  a  pleasant 
voice,  were  what  seemed  to  older  observers  rather 
hopelessly  beyond  our  attainment. 

There  are  many  still  to  deny  our  possession  of 
K  129 


130  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

these  gifts,  but  that  we  have  proved  our  desire 
for  them  and  a  very  encouraging  purpose  to  win 
them,  is  heartily  conceded  by  competent  continental 
judges. 

The  changes  of  judgment  among  the  English 
do  not  come  through  any  of  these  refinements. 
England  began  really  to  respect  us  because  of  the 
national  strength  displayed  in  the  Civil  War.  The 
enduring  valor,  the  sacrifice  for  an  idea,  both  North 
and  South ;  the  tenacity  of  the  entire  people  and  the 
ready  acceptance  of  the  result,  were,  one  and  all, 
arguments  that  are  finalities  to  practical  men  of 
Anglo-Saxon  origin.  Barring  a  few  holiday  skits, 
the  critical  atmosphere  changes  after  this  date  as  by 
some  cleansing  storm.  Mr.  Bryce  says  that  phi- 
losophers from  Plato  to  Sir  Robert  Lowe  have  at- 
tributed "weakness  in  emergencies"  to  democracies, 
and  further  that  Europeans  had  concluded  (partly 
from  internal  dissensions  and  our  habit  of  too  much 
blustering)  that  we  "lacked  firmness  and  vigor." 
The  Civil  War,  he  says,  undeceived  Europe.  "The 
North  put  forth  its  power  with  a  suddenness  and 
resolution  which  surprised  the  world.  The  South- 
ern people  displayed  no  less  vigor,  even  when  the  tide 
had  evidently  begun  to  turn  against  them."  This 
Saxon  trait  of  bowing  to  the  hard  fact  of  success 
appeared  again  when  the  Spanish  ships  went  to 
pieces  before  American  guns.1 

1  In  1856  Emerson  said,  "It  is  noticeable  that  England  is  be- 
ginning to  interest  us  a  little  less." 


CHANGE    OF   TONE   IN   FOREIGN   CRITICISM      131 

The  eye  of  the  foreigner  noted  other  events,  like 
that  of  Northern  and  Southern  armies  quietly  going 
to  their  ordinary  tasks  after  Appomattox.  Especially 
England  watched  the  popular  frenzy  that  raged  about 
the  attempt  to  impeach  Andrew  Johnson.  One  of 
the  ablest  of  English  publicists,  Walter  Bagehot, 
wrote,  "Few  nations,  perhaps  scarcely  any  nation, 
could  have  borne  such  a  trial  so  easily  and  so  per- 
fectly." The  effect  was  no  less  telling  when  it 
appeared  that  a  stupendous  national  debt  was  to  be 
honestly  met  and  rapidly  paid  off.  From  Glad- 
stone this  resolute  facing  of  debts  won  for  us  the 
following  tribute :  — 

"In  twelve  years  she  [America]  has  reduced  her  debt  by  one 
hundred  and  fifty-eight  million  pounds,  or  at  the  rate  of  thir- 
teen million  pounds  for  each  year.  In  each  twelve  months  she 
has  done  what  we  did  in  eight  years ;  her  self-command,  self- 
denial,  and  wise  forethought  of  the  future  have  been,  to  say 
the  least,  eightfold  ours.  These  are  facts  which  redounded 
greatly  to  her  honor;  and  the  historian  will  record  with  sur- 
prise that  an  enfranchised  nation  tolerated  burdens  which  in 
this  country  a  selected  class,  possessed  of  the  representation, 
did  not  dare  to  face,  and  that  the  most  unmitigated  democracy 
known  to  the  annals  of  the  world  resolutely  reduced  at  its  own 
cost  prospective  liabilities  of  the  State  which  the  aristocratic, 
and  plutocratic,  and  monarchical  Government  of  the  United 
Kingdom  had  been  contented  ignobly  to  hand  over  to  pos- 
terity." 

Forty  years  after  the  war  John  Morley  wrote :  — 

"  Of  this  immense  conflict  Mr.  Gladstone,  like  most  of  the 
leading  statesmen  of  the  time,  and  like  the  majority  of  his  own 
countrymen,  failed  to  take  the  true  measure.  The  error  that 


132  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

lay  at  the  root  of  our  English  misconceptions  of  the  American 
struggle  is  now  clear.  We  applied  ordinary  political  maxims 
to  what  was  not  merely  a  political  contest,  but  a  social 
revolution."  * 

The  change  here  indicated  appears  at  once  among 
the  writers  who  come  after  the  war.  They  seem 
for  the  first  time  really  to  see  the  United  States.  It 
is  as  if  most  writers  before  this  event  had  been 
watching,  not  the  United  States,  but  some  idea  of 
our  country  which  they  brought  with  them.  From 
now  on  there  is  a  new  deference ;  even  a  good  show 
of  modesty  in  passing  judgment  on  complicated 
social  phenomena.  There  is  not  only  more  regard 
for  American  feeling,  but  a  more  conscientious 
attempt  to  interpret  the  objects  under  observation. 
The  old  platitudes  are  questioned ;  the  conventional 
repetition  of  supposed  peculiarities  no  longer  satis- 
fies. This  has  to  be  shown  through  trivial  illustra- 
tions and  by  repeating  some  of  our  alleged  charac- 
teristics. Yet  it  is  these  very  trivialities  that  occupy 
half  the  space  in  these  travel  books.  Whatever 
space  is  still  given  to  them,  there  is  an  altered  attitude 
as  to  their  interpretation.  "Why,"  says  one,  "  should 
a  whole  nation  set  itself  so  joyously  to  the  rhythmic 
use  of  the  rocking-chair,  unless  this  motion  answers 
some  physiological  need?  I  thought  at  first  it  was 
devised  for  some  special  form  of  nervous  diseases, 
but  I  soon  came  to  find  how  much  solid  comfort  I 
could  have  in  it." 

1  "Life  of  Gladstone,"  Vol.  II,  p.  70. 


SIR  CHARLES  LYEI.L 
English  Scientist  and  Traveller  in  America 


CHANGE   OF   TONE   IN   FOREIGN   CRITICISM       133 

A  temper  like  that  applied  to  every  phase  of  a 
nation's  life  would  give  us  a  new  critical  standard. 
It  reminds  us  of  Huxley's  definition  of  science,  as 
"organized  common  sense."  Its  luminous  advan- 
tage is  that  objects  and  experiences  are  so  studied 
that  one  sees  them  in  relation  to  the  social  and  his- 
toric whole  of  which  they  are  a  part.  There  was 
in  our  Civil  War  an  intensity  of  dramatic  effect 
upon  foreign  observers  that  did  much  to  create  this 
new  temper.  There  are  many  references  to  it  in 
those  who  come  after  1866.  They  seem  to  be  saying : 
"Well,  well,  we  had  no  idea  that  there  was  so  much 
in  you ;  that  you  had  such  reserves  of  strength ;  or  that 
you  cared  so  much  for  ideals.  We  shall  have  to  make 
of  you  a  new  study."  I  heard  a  German  writer 
say  that  the  United  States  appeared  to  him  abso- 
lutely destitute  of  all  ideals  until  he  followed  the 
story  of  the  war.  "Then,"  he  added,  "I  saw  that 
no  people  had  more  stuff  for  heroism  than  the 
American."  Our  country  had  only  been  seen  by 
bits.  As  a  whole  it  had  never  been  the  object  of 
study.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  one  must  live  here 
twenty  years  or  see  every  state,  but  that  some  con- 
ception of  the  infinite  variation  of  life  and  problems 
here  is  fundamentally  requisite.  It  is  requisite  for 
this  reason,  that  without  some  sense  of  these  differ- 
ences in  social  structure  and  development  no  helpful 
comparison  of  things  that  properly  go  together  is 
possible.  I  heard  one  of  the  most  widely  known  of 
living  Englishmen  say,  "There  is  no  scenery  in  the 


134  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

United  States."  Our  coast-line,  with  one  or  two 
slight  exceptions  (as  on  the  coast  of  Maine),  he 
thought  tame  and  uninteresting.  The  character 
and  grouping  of  our  Rocky  Mountains,  he  said, 
were  not  "scenery"  in  any  proper  sense  —  and  so 
on. 

Now  this  criticism,  true  or  false,  depends  upon 
comparison.  The  critic  had  in  mind  the  varied 
magnificence  of  Switzerland  with  its  splendor  of 
color  in  snow,  verdure,  and  water  effects,  or  he  was 
bringing  together  in  his  imagination  other  parts  of 
the  world  side  by  side  with  his  mental  picture  of  this 
country.  If  we  could  once  agree  upon  a  definition 
of  "scenery,"  these  comparisons  would  assist  us  just 
so  far  as  our  observations  covered  the  ground.  But 
scenery  is  an  affair  of  aesthetic  taste,  about  which 
the  only  certainty  is  that  tastes  will  differ.  It  is  not 
alone  a  matter  of  coast-lines  or  mountain  groupings. 
Upon  a  score  of  our  smaller  rivers,  with  their  soft 
curves  and  stretching  meadows ;  in  a  hundred  dainty 
nooks  among  the  New  England  and  Southern  hills; 
in  the  sweep  and  perspective  of  the  great  plains  be- 
yond the  Mississippi,  what  is  it  that  gives  the  thrill 
if  it  is  not  scenery?  This  is  a  composite  and  in- 
clusive term.  Going  south  from  Pueblo,  Colorado, 
the  train  seems  to  sink  as  into  a  vast  shallow  cup 
with  the  Spanish  Peaks  on  the  far  outer  rim.  I  saw 
it  once  in  an  evening  light  so  gorgeous  in  its  inten- 
sity, that  it  gave  one  a  kind  of  pain  to  look  upon  it, 
because  there  was  no  way  to  express  the  pressure  of 


CHANGE   OF  TONE   IN   FOREIGN   CRITICISM        135 

emotion  it  excited.  If  that  was  not  scenery,  what 
name  are  we  to  give  it? 

Washington  Irving  had  an  eye  for  natural  beauty. 
He  said,  "Never  need  an  American  look  beyond  his 
own  country  for  the  sublime  and  beautiful  of  natural 
scenery."  Some  varieties  at  their  highest  we  may 
lack,  but  other  varieties  surely  are  ours. 

As  we  know  our  country  better  in  quite  other  than 
its  natural  aspects,  we  shall  apply  this  same  test  to 
all  these  critical  decisions.  We  shall  ask  in  morals, 
in  education,  in  things  social  and  material,  that  the 
comparison  recognize  this  almost  measureless  diver- 
sity in  the  totality  of  American  life.  To  see  some- 
thing of  this  completer  relation  requires  long  and 
concentrated  study  or  an  imagination  like  that  of 
H.  G.  Wells. 

This  is  a  digression,  but  it  should  light  up  a  little 
this  point ;  that  the  recent  visitors  (those  with  even 
the  least  competence  as  critics)  seem  at  last  honestly 
to  feel  and  to  confess  some  sense  of  the  magnitude 
and  diversity  of  their  task. 

Let  us  appeal  again  to  the  trivialities.  Our 
"national  habit  of  drinking  ice-water"  was  in- 
variably spoken  of  earlier  as  an  inexcusable  freak. 
Even  Steevens  in  his  "Land  of  the  Dollar"  continues 
the  tradition :  — 

"It  is  more  indispensable  than  a  napkin,  and  the  waiter 
who  will  keep  you  waiting  ten  minutes  for  bread,  will  rush 
wildly  for  the  bottle  if  your  ice-water  sinks  half  an  inch  below 
the  brim  of  the  glass.  Ring  a  bell  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or 


136  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

night —  a  panting  attendant  dashes  in  with  ice-water.  Sip, 
sip,  sip —  men,  women,  and  little  children  go  pouring  the 
noxious  stuff  into  their  insides.  The  effect  of  this  ice-water 
habit  on  the  national  constitution  can  only  be  most  disastrous." l 

We  have  the  new  temper  of  which  I  speak  in  Mr. 
Muirhead's  "Land  of  Contrasts,"  in  which  he  begs 
to  — 

—  "warn  the  British  visitor  to  suspend  his  judgment  until 
he  has  been  some  time  in  the  country.  I  certainly  was  not 
prejudiced  in  favor  of  this  chilly  draught  when  I  started  for 
the  United  States,  but  I  soon  came  to  find  it  natural  and  even 
necessary,  and  as  much  so  from  the  dry  hot  air  of  the  stove - 
heated  room  in  winter  as  from  the  natural  ambition  of  the 
mercury  in  summer.  On  the  whole,  it  may  be  philosophic  to 
conclude  that  a  universal  habit  in  any  country  has  some  solid 
if  cryptic  reason  for  its  existence,  and  to  surmise  that  the  drink- 
ing of  ice-water  is  not  so  deadly  in  the  States  as  it  might  be 
elsewhere." 

Yes,  it  is  "philosophic  to  conclude"  that  a  "uni- 
versal habit"  among  a  people  may  have  something 
to  say  for  itself;  that  it  is  not  to  be  accounted  for 
by  any  snap-shot  impressions.  There  is  scarcely 
one  of  the  commonplace  parrot  phrases  that  is  not 
now  being  carefully  revised. 

"American  houses  and  cars  are  like  a  lot  of  ovens." 
"You  may  travel  a  month  without  seeing  a  human 
being  who  seems  to  be  at  leisure."  "Their  poli- 
ticians are  invariably  below  the  average  in  intelli- 
gence and  morals."  "They  are  gloomily  silent." 
"The  American  voice  has  a  grating  quality  that 

1  P-  i77- 


CHANGE   OF   TONE   IN   FOREIGN   CRITICISM        137 

sets  every  nerve  on  edge."  There  is  some  truth  in 
every  one  of  these  statements,  and  in  two  of  them 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  truth.  That  our  houses  and 
cars  are  very  generally  overheated,  we  know  well. 
It  would  be  truer  to  say  that  we  used  our  heat  too 
jerkily ;  that  it  runs  to  extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  as 
on  our  trains.  But  here  at  last  comes  an  English- 
man who  "sees  a  great  deal  of  home  life  in  several 
cities  during  four  months."  He  says:  "I  looked 
in  vain  for  those  stifling  houses  of  which  I  had  read 
all  my  life.  Upon  the  whole,  I  was  no  more  troubled 
by  heat  than  I  have  been  in  London."  We  think  he 
was  pretty  lucky,  but  he  should  go  in  as  a  witness  to 
the  change  of  opinions. 

The  third  observation  that  no  one  of  us  seems  to 
have  any  leisure  must  have  far  more  qualifying. 
Some  recent  writers  will  give  no  countenance  to  the 
generalization  whatever.1  No  one  will  watch  the 
workers,  even  in  such  a  whirlpool  of  activity  as 
Pittsburg,  without  some  amazement  at  the  ex- 
tremely leisurely  air  of  whole  sections  of  skilled 
workers,  as  well  as  among  many  heads  of  depart- 
ments upon  whom  great  responsibility  falls.  De 
Tocqueville  has  much  to  say  of  the  feverish  ardor 
with  which  the  Americans  pursue  their  welfare; 
of  "the  strange  unrest  of  so  many  happy  men, 
uneasy  in  the  midst  of  abundance."  Until  the  period 

1  This  is  also  the  strongly  expressed  opinion  of  the  working- 
men  members  of  the  Mosley  Commission  to  this  country  two 
years  ago. 


138  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

of  discrimination  came,  this  opinion  is  repeated  by 
nine  out  of  every  ten  of  our  inspectors.  Mr.  Muir- 
head  does  not  let  the  formula  pass.  He  is  much 
more  closely  accurate  in  the  following :  — 

"If  an  Englishman  has  a  mile  to  go  to  an  appointment,  he 
will  take  his  leisurely  twenty  minutes  to  do  the  distance,  and 
then  settle  his  business  in  two  or  three  dozen  sentences;  an 
American  is  much  more  likely  to  devour  the  ground  in  five 
minutes,  and  then  spend  an  hour  or  more  in  lively  conversa- 
tion not  wholly  pertinent  to  the  matter  in  hand."  1 

That  our  politicians  are  invariably  below  the  aver- 
age morally  and  intellectually  has  a  disheartening 
truth,  so  far  as  attention  is  fixed  on  certain  city  and 
state  conditions.  In  our  political  life  as  a  whole, 
there  is  no  sense  in  which  our  representatives  can  be 
said  to  fall  below  the  average.  Both  Bryce  and 
Miinsterberg  give  strong  statement  to  this  effect. 

What  is  meant  again  by  the  frequent  assertion 
that  we  are  "the  most  silent  people"?  I  have  often 
heard  this  said  by  foreigners,  and  it  is  many  times 
written.  I  asked  one  of  the  keenest  of  our  observers 
what  he  meant  by  our  silence.  He  answered:  "I 
mean  first,  that  in  all  public  places,  as  you  travel, 
sit  at  table  in  hotels  and  restaurants,  in  your  larger 
stores,  on  the  street  and  in  crowds,  you  are  strangely 
silent.2  I  ask  a  policeman  for  a  street,  and  all  I 

1  "The  Land  of  Contrasts,"  p.  90. 

A  New  York  paper  comments  thus:  "Everything  considered, 
though,  the  real  dementia  Americana  is  hurryupitis." 

2  Bryce  is  more  cautious  in  his  statement.     "They  are  not  a 
loquacious  people."  —  Vol.  II,  p.  688. 


CHANGE   OF   TONE    IN    FOREIGN    CRITICISM       139 

get  is,  'Second  turn  to  your  left.'  I  ask  the  con- 
ductor on  the  trolley-car  to  let  me  out  at  a  certain 
point,  and,  usually,  he  makes  no  reply  whatever 
but  —  does  let  me  off.1  I  ask  the  girl  behind  the 
counter  for  some  article.  Oftener  than  not  she 
serves  me  without  a  word,  as  if  I  didn't  exist."  He 
hears  that  in  our  family  life  it  is  the  exception  to 
have  much  conversation  at  meals;  that  we  do  not 
get  a  pleasure  out  of  common  talk;  that  when  the 
meal  is  over,  the  evening  paper  or  whist  becomes  a 
substitute  for  conversation.  Dickens  says:  "No  one 
speaks  at  meals.  They  all  seem  to  have  tremendous 
secrets  on  their  minds."  One  of  the  critics  con- 
cludes that  our  joking  habit  spoils  conversation. 
"The  funny  man  is  a  national  calamity."  Another 
thinks  that  we  are  so  busy  that  our  nervous  energy 
is  exhausted,  and  therefore  we  are  too  tired  to  talk. 
A  third  carries  this  a  step  farther,  saying  that 
"Americans  have  not  yet  had  time  to  develop  the 
habits  and  forms  of  easy  verbal  intercourse."  Still 
another  says,  "The  Americans  are  too  afraid  of 
each  other  to  talk  much."  2 

1  One  wonders  if  this  critic  could  have  read  De  Amicis  on  the 
land  of  William  the  Silent.     In  his  chapter  on  The  Hague,  he  de- 
scribes at  length  this  characteristic  of  silence  or  scanty  response 
to  your  inquiries.     He  tells  of  the  great  pains  they  will  take  to  do 
the  things  you  ask,  but  -without  -words  —  "sans  proferer  une  pa- 
role." 

2  It  is  of  her  own  countrymen  at  table  d'hote  that  the  English 
writer,  Miss  Betham-Edwards,  asks :  "  What  deadly  feud  of  blood, 
caste,  or  religion  could  thus  keep  them  apart?     Whilst  the  little 
knot  of  Gallic  travellers  at  the  farther  end  of  the  table  straightway 


140  AS  OTHERS   SEE  US 

I  have  quoted  these  views  to  several  of  our  country- 
men who  have  had  large  experience.  If  they  reflect 
with  some  care  on  the  criticisms,  they  usually  admit 
their  truth  as  applied  to  a  great  deal  of  our  life. 
On  a  coast  steamer  crowded  with  Americans,  I 
saw  a  French  family  sitting  together  at  meals. 
Their  conversation  among  themselves  was  incessant, 
and  day  after  day  so  full  of  gaiety  that  everybody 
showed  a  kind  of  fascination  in  watching  the  ani- 
mated group.  An  American,  observing  it,  asked : 
"Why  is  it  that  we  haven't  sense  enough  at  least  to 
cultivate  a  habit  with  so  much  charm  and  health 
in  it  as  that  ?  It  would  cure  us  of  our  dyspepsia  and 
many  other  national  vices." 

But  with  whom  are  we  compared  ?  Do  the  Eng- 
lish people,  as  a  whole,  talk  more  freely  than  we? 
Do  the  Norwegians  or  the  Germans  ?  We  know  that 
Latin  people  have  a  joy  in  conversation  which 
northern  nations  but  poorly  imitate.  We  know, 
also,  that  to  a  large  part  of  the  Americans,  "silence" 
is  as  little  a  characteristic  as  sky-blue  is  of  the  com- 
plexion. Professor  Janet  wishes  to  set  history  right 
on  this  point  by  saying,  "The  Americans  talk  much 
more  freely  than  the  English  and  the  Dutch." 

That  "the  Americans  have  the  worst  voices  known 
among  civilized  people  "  is  a  generalization  much 
nearer  the  fact  than  that  we  are  silent.  What  can 

fall  into  friendliest  talk,  the  long  rows  of  Britons  of  both  sexes 
and  all  ages  speak  only  in  subdued  voices  and  to  the  members  of 
their  own  family." 


CHANGE   OF   TONE   IN   FOREIGN   CRITICISM        141 

have  caused  such  a  voice  is  many  times  an  object 
of  curious  inquiry.1  Climate,  nervous  tension,  ill 
health,  especially  among  the  women,  are  the  most 
frequent  explanations.  Another  thinks  overstrain- 
ing of  the  vocal  organs  during  our  long  life  on  the 
border,  when  the  women  had  to  strain  their  voices 
in  calling  the  men-folks  to  meals,  accounts  for  it. 
More  astonishing  is  the  theory  that  traces  our  irri- 
tating utterance  to  the  absence  of  monarchy  and  a 
superior  class.  If  we  had  been  civilized  enough  to 
keep  these  hallowed  possessions,  we  should  have 
unconsciously  preserved  and  cultivated  a  subdued 
and  deferential  vocalization.  Another,  perhaps  with 
the  same  thought,  says  we  have  bad  voices  because 
we  have  a  bad  government.  Believing  in  democracy 
and  the  equalities,  we  put  gruffness,  loudness,  and 
bluster  into  the  voice !  As  this  is  unnatural,  it 
impairs  the  vocal  organs.  One  other  thing  is  full 
of  inspiration :  it  is  that  which  attributes  this  special 
inferiority  to  the  lack  of  tipping  waiters  and  depend- 
ants. The  softening  influence  of  a  monarchy  we 
have  lost,  but  the  tipping  system  may  be  made  a 
substitute.  Does  it  not  cultivate  graciousness  in 
the  giver,  and  mild  and  gentle  ways  in  the  receiver? 
We  are  told  that  this  form  of  generosity,  which  acts 
automatically  upwards  and  downwards,  produces 

1  ...  I  once  said  to  a  lady,  "Why  do  you  drawl  out  your 
words  in  that  way?" 

"Well,"  replied  she,  "I'd  drawl  all  the  way  from  Maine  to 
Georgia  rather  than  clip  my  words  as  you  English  people  do."  — 
MARRYAT,  Vol.  I,  p.  222. 


142  AS  OTHERS   SEE  US 

an  atmosphere  of  good  manners  which  includes  a 
milder  and  more  pliant  voice.  At  the  time  of  this 
happy  exposition  (1840)  there  was  no  tipping  in 
sight,  nor  any  hopeful  sign  of  tipping  to  come. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  remedy  is  at  last  ours,  or 
that  it  has  a  wide  and  contagious  popularity.  We 
may  therefore  free  ourselves  from  this  special  source 
of  worry. 

I  am  not  certain  that  Professor  Freeman  observed 
the  effects  of  the  tipping  cure  in  its  early  stages,  but 
he  is  one  of  the  first  to  come  to  our  defence  in  the 
way  of  intelligent  and  truthful  observation.  Instead 
of  reckless  generalization  like  "Americans  speak  with 
an  intolerable  quality  of  voice,"  he  discriminates. 
He  uses  the  comparative  method,  not  alone  as  applied 
to  one  nation  with  another  nation,  but,  of  greater 
importance,  he  gets  corresponding  classes  or  sections 
in  each  country  into  some  relation,  section  with 
section,  so  that  a  real  comparison  can  be  made. 
The  earlier  vice  was  to  compare  a  selected  and  better 
class  in  England  with  the  miscellaneous,  rough  and 
tumble  life  as  seen  in  the  American  coach,  train,  or 
boarding-house.  We  come  off  less  badly  as  to  voice 
in  what  Professor  Freeman  says :  — 

"Some  people  have  the  twang  very  strongly;  some  have  it 
not  at  all.  Some,  after  speaking  for  a  long  time  without  it,  will 
bring  it  in  in  a  particular  word  or  sentence;  in  others  it  is 
strongly  marked  when  a  few  words  are  uttered  suddenly,  but 
dies  off  in  the  course  of  a  longer  conversation.  And  I  dis- 
tinctly marked  that  it  was  far  more  universal  among  women 
than  among  men." 


CHANGE   OF   TONE    IN   FOREIGN   CRITICISM       143 

Professor  Mills  (McGill  University),  speaking  of 
indistinctness  and  muffling  the  voice,  says,  "It  is 
found  in  English  and  German  also.  English  speech 
is  often  hard  and  guttural,  German  unduly  guttural, 
if  not  hard;  and  American  slovenly  and  horribly 
nasal."1  That  method  throws  a  little  light  on  the 
general  obscurity.  It  does  not  leave  the  whole  sin  at 
our  doors. 

At  first  the  American  press  reporter  is  "as  in- 
credibly ignorant  as  he  is  incompetent  and  ill- 
mannered."  The  tone  is  now  rather  that  of  William 
Archer : 2  — 

"All  the  pleasant  expectations  I  brought  with  me  to 
America  have  been  realized,  all  the  forebodings  disappointed. 
Even  the  interviewer  is  far  less  terrible  than  I  had  been  led 
to  imagine.  He  always  treated  me  with  courtesy,  sometimes 
with  comprehension." 

This  is  the  spirit  of  Herbert  Spencer  and  Dean 
Hole.  Dean  Hole  says :  — 

"I  was  interviewed  by  more  than  two  hundred  journalists 
of  both  sexes,  and  so  far  from  being  bored  by  their  tedious 
dulness  or  exasperated  by  their  inquisitive  curiosity,  —  as 
certain  false  prophets  had  foretold,  —  I  was  universally  pleased 
by  their  courtesy  and  instructed  by  their  information."  3 

Miinsterberg,  who  has  had  much  discipline  at  the 
hands  of  reporters,  thus  writes  in  his  "Americans," 
"The  American  journalist  is  usually  a  gentleman  and 
can  be  relied  on  to  be  discreet." 

1  "Voice  Production,"  Lippincott,  1906,  p.  146. 

2  "America  To-day." 

3  "A  Little  Tour  in  America." 


144  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

A  final  illustration  will  mark  still  better  the  change 
of  tone.  A  sturdy  volume  could  be  filled  with  asser- 
tions to  the  effect  that  beyond  all  nations  we  are 
consumed  by  the  greedy  passion  for  money.  Several 
books  bear  titles  like  "The  Land  of  Dollars." 
Many  chapters  either  give  exclusive  attention  to  this 
mad  hunt  for  lucre,  or  dwell  upon  it  at  great  length. 
It  may  be  admitted  that  other  peoples  have  an  inci- 
dental regard  to  their  pecuniary  interests,  but  we 
Americans  make  it  "a  seven-day  religion."  Harriet 
Martineau,  so  far  as  my  record  shows,  was  the  first 
to  challenge  this  criticism. 

"I  have  studied  with  some  care  the  minds  and  manners  of 
a  variety  of  merchants,  and  other  persons  engaged  in  com- 
merce, and  have  certainly  found  a  regard  to  money  a  more 
superficial  and  intermitting  influence  than  various  others."  l 

This  is  cautiously  worded,  as  if  she  were  not  quite 
sure  of  her  ground.  Even  De  Tocqueville  had  laid 
this  sin  of  money-loving  upon  us  with  a  heavy  hand. 
But  this  man  of  genius  was  comparing  us  to  an  upper 
section  of  European  society  whose  income  was, 
for  the  most  part,  earned  by  their  tenants  or  other 
people.  It  has  always  been  easy  for  such  as  these 
to  show  the  most  graceful  indifference  to  money. 
Of  the  vast  majority  of  hard-working  Frenchmen 
he  is  not  thinking.  On  this  point  the  pages  of 
Balzac  are  like  a  mirror.2  We  look  into  them  and  see 
reflected  there  such  a  hungry  regard  for  money  and 

1  "Society  in  America,"  Vol.  I,  p.  142. 

a  These  are  words  we  owe  to  a  French  economist:    "We  buy 


rentes  as  cannot  be  found  in  a  page  of  American 
history.  Chevalier  was  speaking  of  a  wider  class 
still  in  his  country  when  he  said,  "Nowhere  do 
you  see  specimens  of  that  sordid  avarice  of  which 
examples  are  so  common  among  us."  l  This  accurate 
truth-telling  about  the  love  of  money  in  England  is 
as  pitiless  in  Thackeray's  novels  as  it  is  in  Balzac. 
America  has  no  literature  which  shows  the  sin  in 
grosser  or  more  prevalent  form  than  in  these  two 
masters  as  they  lay  bare  this  passion  among  their 
own  people, 

We  can  now  appeal  on  this  topic  to  other  writers. 
Professor  Miinsterberg's  estimate  is  as  follows:  — 

"The  American  does  not  prize  his  possessions  much  unless 
he  has  worked  for  them  himself;  of  this  there  are  innumerable 
proofs,  in  spite  of  the  opposite  appearances  on  the  surface. 
One  of  the  most  interesting  of  these  is  the  absence  of  the  bridal 
dower.  In  Germany  or  France  the  man  looks  on  a  wealthy 
marriage  as  one  of  the  most  reliable  means  of  getting  an  in- 
come; there  are  whole  professions  which  depend  on  a  man's 
eking  out  his  entirely  inadequate  salary  from  property  which 
he  inherits  or  gets  by  marriage;  and  the  eager  search  for  a 
handsome  dowry —  in  fact,  the  general  commercial  character 
of  marriage  in  reputable  European  society  everywhere  — 
always  surprises  Americans.  Everywhere  one  sees  the 

a  woman  with  our  fortune,  or  we  sell  ourselves  to  her  for  her  dower. 
The  American  chooses  her,  or  rather  offers  himself  to  her,  for  her 
beauty,  her  intelligence,  or  her  amiable  qualities,  and  asks  no  other 
portion.  Thus,  whilst  we  make  a  traffic  of  what  is  most  sacrrd, 
these  shopkeepers  exhibit  a  delicacy  and  loftiness  of  feeling, 
have  done  honor  to  the  most  perfect  models  of  chivalry." 
1  P-  3°3- 

L 


146  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

daughters  of  wealthy  families  stepping  into  the  modest  homes 
of  their  husbands,  and  these  husbands  would  feel  it  to  be  a 
disgrace  to  depend  on  their  prosperous  fathers-in-law.  An 
actual  dowry  received  from  the  bride's  parents  during  their 
lifetime  is  virtually  unknown.  Another  instance  of  American 
contempt  for  unearned  wealth,  which  especially  contrasts  with 
European  customs,  is  the  disapproval  which  the  American 
always  has  for  lotteries.  If  he  were  really  bent  on  getting 
money,  he  would  find  the  dowry  and  the  lottery  a  ready 
means."  1 

"The  American  chases  after  money  with  all  his  might,  ex- 
actly as  on  the  tennis-court  he  tries  to  hit  the  ball,  and  it  is  the 
game  he  likes  and  not  the  prize.  If  he  loses,  he  does  not  feel  as 
if  he  had  lost  a  part  of  himself,  but  only  as  if  he  had  lost  the 
last  set  in  a  tournament."  2 

Earlier  still  Mr.  Bryce  wrote:  "A  millionnaire 
has  a  better  and  easier  social  career  open  to  him  in 
England  than  in  America.  In  America  if  his  private 
character  be  bad,  if  he  be  mean,  or  openly  immoral, 
or  personally  vulgar,  or  dishonest,  the  best  society 
will  keep  its  doors  closed  against  him.  In  England 
great  wealth,  skilfully  employed,  will  more  readily 
force  these  doors  to  open.  For  in  England  great 
wealth  can,  by  using  the  appropriate  methods, 
practically  buy  rank  from  those  who  bestow  it;  or 
by  obliging  persons,  whose  position  enables  them  to 
command  fashionable  society,  can  induce  them  to 
stand  sponsors  for  the  upstart,  and  force  him  into 
society,  a  thing  which  no  person  in  America  has  the 
power  to  do." 3 

1  "The  Americans,"  p.  231.  2  Ibid.,  p.  234. 

3  "American  Commonwealth,"  Vol.  II,  p.  604. 


CHANGE   OF   TONE   IN   FOREIGN    CRITICISM        147 

In  general,  what  has  increased  this  new  tone  in 
our  favor  is  unquestionably  the  advent  of  the  United 
States  as  a  "World  Power."  Whether  this  new  r61e 
is  to  fit  us  or  unfit  us,  is  open  to  doubt,  but  the  kind  of 
impression  it  has  made  abroad,  is  not  open  to  doubt. 

At  the  opening  of  the  twentieth  century,  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  of  English  journalists  begins  his 
Preface  with  the  words,1  "The  advent  of  the  United 
States  of  America  as  the  greatest  of  world  powers  is 
the  greatest  political,  social,  and  commercial  phe- 
nomenon of  our  times."  He  says,  "That  the  United 
States  of  America  have  now  arrived  at  such  a  pitch 
of  power  and  prosperity  as  to  have  a  right  to  claim 
the  leading  place  among  English-speaking  nations, 
cannot  be  disputed."  Then  with  much  vigor  he 
pleads  for  a  vitalized  union  of  English  and  American 
interests.  He  quotes  Balfour's  words,  "The  idea 
of  a  war  with  the  United  States  of  America  carries 
with  it  something  of  the  unnatural  horror  of  civil 
war."  He  adds  passages  from  Gladstone  and 
Cecil  Rhodes  which  ring  with  the  same  world  note. 
He  even  reports  Lord  Derby  when  in  Gladstone's 
Cabinet  as  saying  to  Dr.  Dillon,  "The  highest  ideal 
I  can  look  forward  to  in  the  future  of  my  country 
is  that  the  time  may  come  when  we  may  be  admitted 
into  the  American  Union  as  states  in  one  great 
federation."  2  This  outsteps  Professor  Dicey's  sug- 

1  W.  T.  Stead,  "The  Americanization  of  the  World,"  London, 
1902. 

2  Mr.    Stead    reproduces    a   famous    English    cartoon    which 


148  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

gestion   of   political   representation   of   the   United 
States  in  the  English  Parliament.1 

Years  before  any  of  these  words  were  spoken, 
Richard  Cobden  wrote,  "Our  only  chance  of  national 
prosperity  lies  in  the  timely  remodelling  of  our 
system  so  as  to  put  it  as  nearly  as  possible  upon  an 
equality  with  the  improved  management  of  the 
Americans."  The  irresistible  journalist,  Mr.  Stead, 
is  not,  however,  to  be  outdone.  He  will  have  the 
English  people  to  whom  he  belongs  unite  with  us  in 
the  celebration  of  July  Fourth.  If  we  gasp  at  this 
suggestion  he  says,  "The  practice  of  hoisting  flags 
on  the  birthday  of  the  American  Republic  has  been 
gaining  ground  in  Great  Britain,  and  here  and  there 
Britons  have  begun  to  set  apart  the  sacred  Fourth  of 
July  as  a  /£fc-day  of  the  race."  Not  wishing  to  be 
oversanguine,  he  admits  that  the  "ordinary  British 
subject  cannot  be  expected  just  yet  to  enter  into  this 
common  rejoicing  without  some  hesitation."  But 
he  adds,  "As  year  after  year  passes  he  will  come  to 
celebrate  the  Fourth  of  July  heartily  and  ungrudg- 
ingly." To  remove  the  lingering  prejudices,  we  on 

dresses  John  Bull  in  Uncle  Sam's  attire,  and  puts  upon  the  body 
of  the  American  eagle  a  lion's  head. 

1  This  profound  student  of  politics  uses  these  words:  "The 
plain  truth  is,  that  educated  Englishmen  are  slowly  learning  that 
the  American  Republic  accords  the  best  example  of  a  conservative 
democracy;  and  now  that  England  is  becoming  democratic,  re- 
spectable Englishmen  are  beginning  to  consider  whether  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  may  not  afford  means  by  which, 
under  new  democratic  forms,  may  be  preserved  the  political  con- 
servatism dear  and  habitual  to  the  governing  classes  of  England." 


CHARLES  DICKENS 


CHANGE   OF   TONE   IN   FOREIGN   CRITICISM         149 

our  side  must  unite  on  Shakespeare's  birthday  and 
on  the  day  when  Magna  Charta  was  signed.  And 
one  step  farther  in  the  general  healing  —  we  must 
all  unite  on  the  third  of  September.  "It  was 
Cromwell's  great  day,  the  day  of  Dunbar  and 
Worcester,  the  day  on  which  he  opened  his  Parlia- 
ments, the  day  on  which  he  passed  into  the  presence 
of  his  Maker.  Cromwell,  the  common  hero  of  both 
sections  of  the  race,  summoned  his  first  Parliament 
on  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  his  inaugural  address 
was  the  first  Fourth  of  July  oration  that  was  ever 
delivered.  It  was  instinct  with  the  conviction  of 
the  reality  of  the  providential  mission  of  the  English- 
speaking  race.  In  his  own  words,  "We  have  our 
desire  to  see  healing  and  looking  forward  (rather) 
than  to  rake  into  sores  and  look  backward."  If  the 
interchange  of  courtesies  and  f&e-day  shouting  is 
to  be  made  so  easy  as  this,  it  is  not  for  Americans  to 
hesitate. 

In  1813  so  responsible  a  person  as  the  English 
Ambassador  Foster  said  of  us  publicly,  "Generally 
speaking,  they  are  not  a  people  we  should  be  proud 
to  acknowleged  as  our  relation."  In  1829  the 
author  of  "Tom  Cringle's  Log"  *  said  in  Black- 
wood's  Magazine:  " I  don't  like  Americans.  I  never 
did  and  never  shall  like  them.  I  have  seldom  met 
an  American  gentleman  in  the  large  and  complete 
sense  of  the  term.  I  have  no  wish  to  eat  with  them, 
drink  with  them,  deal  with  them,  or  consort  with 
them  in  any  way." 

1  Michael  Scott. 


150  AS  OTHERS  SEE   US 

Many  and  interesting  things  appear  to  have 
happened  between  this  and  Mr.  Stead's  invitation 
to  international  fete-days  grouped  about  July  the 
Fourth. 

This  "journalist  who  thinks  in  continents"  does 
not  after  all  take  much  higher  flight  than  the  Oxford 
scholar,  Freeman,  who  could  say:  "It  is  indeed  a 
thrilling  thought  for  a  man  of  the  elder  England  to 
see  what  a  home  the  newest  home  of  his  people  is. 
The  heart  swells,  the  pride  of  kinship  rises,  as  he 
sees  that  it  is  his  own  folk  which  has  done  more 
than  any  other  folk  to  replenish  the  earth  and  to 
subdue  it.  He  is  no  Englishman  at  heart,  he  has 
no  true  feeling  of  the  abiding  tie  of  kindred,  who 
deems  that  the  glory  and  greatness  of  the  child  is 
other  than  part  of  the  glory  and  greatness  of  the 
parent." 


CHAPTER  IX 

HIGHER   CRITICISM 

JOHN  STUART  MILL  called  De  Tocqueville's 
"Democracy"  "the  first  philosophical  book  ever 
written  on  democracy  as  it  manifests  itself  in  modern 
society."  1  Until  1888  no  book  at  all  comparable 
to  it  had  been  written.  It  was  said  that  every 
thinking  man  in  Europe  had  to  read  it,  in  order  to 
avoid  the  constant  confession  that  he  had  not  read 
it.  Alexis  de  Tocqueville,  though  the  son  of  a  peer 
of  France,  took  his  stand  as  a  youth  of  twenty-five 
for  the  French  Revolution  of  1830.  At  the  close  of 
his  school  studies,  he  made  a  long  tour  in  Italy 
and  Sicily,  where  he  worked  at  politics  and  institu- 
tions with  "incredible  pains,"  to  use  his  own  words. 
On  his  return,  he  was  given,  for  a  lad  of  twenty-one, 
an  important  position  (juge  auditeur}.  Political 
and  social  studies  were  from  this  time  his  pursuit. 
With  no  man  can  we  less  connect  the  word  cranky 
or  flighty.  Only  when  he  became  convinced  that 
Charles  X  either  could  not  or  would  not  understand 
constitutional  freedom,  did  he  yield  to  the  Revolution 

1  He  also  says  it  is  the  first  analytic  inquiry  into  the  influence 
of  democracy. 


152  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

of  1830.  His  moral  and  intellectual  struggles  at 
this  period  determined  his  career.  He  had  become 
convinced  that  the  permanent  defeat  of  democracy 
was  impossible.  How,  then,  could  he  better  equip 
himself  for  service  to  his  country  than  go  at  once 
to  America?  He  had  already  discovered  the  most 
competent  man  in  this  country,  the  historian  Jared 
Sparks,  to  guide  him  in  his  first  studies  of  the  town- 
meeting.  He  reached  New  York  in  1831,  spending 
a  year  in  travel  and  incessant  study.  He  rose  in 
France  to  be  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  in  1849, 
receiving,  for  his  moral  courage,  the  honor  of  im- 
prisonment at  the  hands  of  Louis  Napoleon  on  the 
second  of  December,  1851. 

It  is  better  to  put  down  first  the  critical  word  about 
these  volumes.  There  is  so  much  eloquence,  so 
much  elevation  of  tone,  so  much  sympathy  with  every 
ideal  aim  of  democracy,  that  one  has  to  be  a  little  on 
the  defensive.  For  present  usefulness,  de  Tocque- 
ville  does  not  equal  some  later  authors  who  are  far 
his  inferiors.  Even  he  came  with  a  bias.  He 
brought  an  ideal  of  political  society  with  him.  He 
had  committed  himself  heart  and  hand  to  the  con- 
stitutional hopes  under  Louis  Philippe.  He  wanted 
evidence.  He  wished  to  show  that  the  people  could 
govern  themselves.  He  had  heard  that  this  self- 
government  resting  in  the  town-meeting  was  tri- 
umphant in  the  United  States. 

With  the  vision  of  what  he  wanted,  he  came  to 
prepare  for  his  great  book.  There  is  a  little  line  in 


ALEXIS  DE  TOCQUEVILLE 
Author  of  "Democracy  in  America  : 


HIGHER    CRITICISM  153 

his  Introduction  which  tells  all  there  is  to  tell  about 
his  bias,  "J'avoue  que  dans  I'Amerique,  fai  vu  plus 
que  VAmtrique"  —  "I  grant  that  in  America  I  saw 
more  than  was  there."  But  more  than  this  seeking 
of  evidence  that  he  was  eager  to  find  was  his  in- 
tellectual habit  of  dealing  with  large  political  ab- 
stractions. These  never  leave  him  quite  free  to 
follow  the  humbler  indications  of  the  facts  before 
him.  It  was  the  method  of  his  time.  Even  the 
hard-headed  Chevalier  cannot  get  his  book  under 
way,  without  imposing  inferences  drawn  from  all 
corners  of  the  antique  world.  The  two  races  sup- 
posed to  flow  from  Japhet  and  Shem  are  essential 
to  a  true  understanding  of  democracy  in  America, 
as  are  the  Roman  Empire,  China,  and  Japan.  We 
now  know  that  two  generations  ago  these  august  and 
sounding  analogies,  if  applied  to  modern  conditions, 
served  chiefly  to  conceal  the  facts  or  to  muddle  and 
bewilder  our  relation  to  the  facts.  Even  at  the 
present  time,  it  is  only  here  and  there  that  a  scholar 
is  wise  enough  to  flourish  those  ancient  societies 
before  us  without  enveloping  the  audience  in  a  gen- 
eral haze.  I  heard  the  president  of  an  eastern  college 
once  say,  "When  we  are  discussing  these  modern 
political  problems,  if  any  one  raises  Greece  and 
Rome,  I  always  vote  to  adjourn."  Mr.  Dooley  is 
of  the  same  mind:  "Whiniver  I  go  to  a  pollytical 
meetin',  an'  th'  laad  with  th'  open-wurruk  face 
mentions  Rome  or  Athens,  I  grab  for  me  hat.  I 
know  he's  not  goin'  to  say  anything  that  ought  to 
keep  me  out  iv  bed." 


154  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

This  was  so  the  usage  of  de  Tocqueville's  time  that, 
although  very  temperate,  he  cannot  wholly  avoid  the 
temptation.  Too  frequently  these  classical  analogies 
are  a  substitute  for  good  argument.  But  this  is 
only  a  part  of  de  Tocqueville's  real  weakness.  He 
has  a  delight  in  working  out  large  formulas  about 
liberty,  equality,  democracy,  and  public  opinion. 
These  become  in  his  mind  "  principles,"  as  they  in- 
deed are,  but  he  gets  them  too  soon  and  too  easily. 
Above  all,  he  gives  them  shape  before  the  facts  quite 
justify  him.  He  is  so  tenacious  of  these  principles, 
that  he  inclines  to  rule  out  facts,  or  not  to  see  them, 
if  they  disturb  his  general  position.  His  generaliza- 
tion often  seems  to  drive  him  off  his  natural  course, 
as  when  he  conjures  up  his  group  of  little  political 
factions,  or  sees  the  steady  decrease  of  the  Federal 
Power. 

He  was  led  by  his  formula  to  fix  upon  us,  as  a 
democracy,  certain  matter-of-fact  habits  of  mind 
which  were  precisely  as  true  of  England  as  of  us. 
He  wanted  to  endow  the  democratic  mind  with  great 
capacity  for  action,  but  not  for  thought  and  reflec- 
tion. We  produced,  forsooth,  "no  inventors."  This 
cunning  was  not  in  the  democratic  mind.  Very 
remarkable  achievements  were  already  at  hand 
before  a  printed  line  of  de  Tocqueville  had  reached 
this  country.  Again,  equality  so  reacts  upon  us 
that,  as  a  democracy,  we  will  not  "recognize  our 
faults."  What  government  does  ?  Are  aristocracies 
eager  to  confess  them?  No  one  to-day  could  con- 


HIGHER   CRITICISM  155 

ceive  of  this  disinclination  to  "recognize  our  faults" 
as  in  the  least  peculiar  to  democracies.  Yet,  as 
Newman  said  of  some  book,  that  "it  was  always 
open  to  criticism  and  always  above  criticism,"  so 
one  must  say  of  this  master's  study  of  democracy. 

It  would  be  unjust  not  to  admit  that  his  abstract 
method  gives  him  in  other  ways  and  for  other  phases 
of  his  problem  both  strength  and  insight.  A  hand- 
to-mouth  policy,  cheap  expediencies,  and  the  dog- 
matism of  common  sense  are  such  ever  present 
weaknesses  in  democracy,  that  we  should  greet  the 
more  cordially  a  type  of  man  to  whom  large  prin- 
ciples have  some  sacredness. 

De  Tocqueville  did  not  merely  think  in  principles, 
but  he  acted  upon  them  in  his  political  career.  He 
possessed  those  high  and  rare  distinctions  in  a 
politician,  convictions,  and  human  sympathy  without 
cant.  It  is  because  these  were  thought  out  and  lived 
out,  that  his  "Democracy  in  America"  has  for  us 
such  priceless  value.  As  we  follow  his  pages,  we 
see  our  troubles  as  through  mists,  but  the  mists 
are  radiant  and  the  light  of  a  great  hope  shoots 
through  them.  Critics  have  said  that  democracy, 
as  a  better  form  of  government,  was  conceived  of 
by  de  Tocqueville  as  a  fatality ;  that  it  was  bear- 
ing down  upon  us  with  forces  so  irresistible  that 
argument  and  effort  for  or  against  it  were  alike 
futile.  Few  careful  readers  will  draw  this  con- 
clusion. Democracy  is  not  to  de  Tocqueville 
necessarily  a  good.  If  it  prove  a  good,  it  will  be 


156  AS    OTHERS    SEE   US 

so  only  because  citizens  do  their  part  in  directing 
the  forces  that  make  for  equality.  Democracy 
will  bear  fruit,  sweet  or  sour,  according  to  the  soil 
of  character  in  which  it  grows.  In  this  conception, 
there  is  indeed  "destiny,"  but  it  is  the  destiny  of 
character.  Democracy  rises  or  falls  as  men  put 
into  it  their  best  or  their  worst. 

As  a  qualification  for  really  enlightening  national 
criticism,  I  have  laid  great  stress  on  a  capacity  for 
common  human  sympathy.  At  least  imaginatively, 
de  Tocqueville  had  this  at  a  very  early  age,  and  it 
deepens  in  him  as  a  result  of  his  social  studies.  He 
conceived  a  kind  of  horror  for  the  way  in  which 
aristocratic  classes  had  governed  the  masses.  He 
came  to  believe  that  the  gradual  softening  of  manners 
was  due  largely  to  a  growing  social  equality.  He 
says,  "When  the  chroniclers  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
who  all  belonged  to  the  aristocracy  by  birth  or 
education,  relate  the  tragical  end  of  a  Noble,  their 
grief  flows  apace ;  whereas  they  tell  you  at  a  breath, 
and  without  wincing,  of  massacres  and  torture  in- 
flicted on  the  common  sort  of  people.1  To  bring 
this  vividly  before  us,  he  quotes  a  letter  as  late  in  his 
country's  history  as  the  time  of  Madame  de  SeVigne. 
This  brilliant  and  kindly  woman  is  writing  to  her 
daughter  of  what  she  had  herself  looked  upon. 
After  a  few  affectionate  pleasantries,  she  asks  her 
daughter, 

1  "Democracy  in  America,"  Vol.  II,  p.  301. 


HIGHER   CRITICISM  157 

"Do  you  wish  to  hear  the  news  from  Rennes?  A  tax  of  a 
hundred  thousand  crowns  has  been  imposed  upon  the  citizens ; 
and  if  this  sum  is  not  produced  within  four  and  twenty  hours, 
it  is  to  be  doubled  and  collected  by  the  soldiers.  They  have 
cleared  the  houses  and  sent  away  the  occupants  of  one  of  the 
great  streets,  and  forbidden  anybody  to  receive  them  on  pain 
of  death;  so  that  the  poor  wretches —  old  men,  women  near 
their  confinement,  and  children  included  —  may  be  seen  wan- 
dering round  and  crying  on  their  departure  from  this  city, 
without  knowing  where  to  go,  and  without  food  or  a  place  to 
lie  in.  Day  before  yesterday,  a  fiddler  was  broken  on  the 
wheel  for  getting  up  a  dance  and  stealing  some  stamped  paper. 
He  was  quartered  after  death,  and  his  limbs  exposed  at  the 
four  corners  of  the  city.  Sixty  citizens  have  been  thrown  into 
prison,  and  the  business  of  punishing  them  is  to  begin  to-mor- 
row. This  province  sets  a  fine  example  to  the  others,  teaching 
them  above  all  things  to  respect  their  governors  and  not  to 
throw  any  more  stones  into  their  garden."  l 

She  then,  as  if  passing  to  really  important  matters, 
tells  of  the  visit  of  Madame  de  Tarente  and  the 
preparations  for  her  coming ;  the  lunch  and  festivities. 
Between  the  description  of  the  gaieties  in  a  later 
letter,  she  adds  incidentally  that  they  were  at  that 
moment  "less  jaded  with  capital  punishments,  only 
one  a  week,  just  to  keep  up  appearances."  "Hang- 
ing," she  says,  "seems  to  me  quite  a  cooling  enter- 
tainment." 

De  Tocqueville  selects  this  famous  lady  because 
she  was  notably  a  kind  person,  neither  "selfish  nor 
cruel";  yet  because  of  the  caste  system  of  which 
she  was  a  part,  she  "had  no  clear  notion  of  suffering 
in  any  one  who  was  not  a  person  of  quality." 

1  "Democracy  in  America,"  Vol.  II,  p.  201. 


158  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

As  he  comes  to  this  country,  one  of  his  first  im- 
pressions of  the  Americans  is  that  "they  are  ex- 
tremely open  to  compassion,"  *  as  shown,  among 
other  examples,  in  their  administration  of  justice. 

That  the  equalizing  of  social  conditions  under 
republican  institutions  is  the  one  hope  for  the  human- 
izing of  the  world,  is  the  conviction  of  this  converted 
aristocrat. 

"When  all  the  ranks  of  a  community  are  nearly  equal,  as  all 
men  think  and  feel  in  nearly  the  same  manner,  each  of  them 
may  judge  in  a  moment  of  the  sensations  of  all  the  others ;  — 
there  is  no  wretchedness  into  which  he  cannot  readily  enter, 
and  a  secret  instinct  reveals  to  him  its  extent.  .  .  .  Something 
like  a  personal  feeling  is  mingled  with  his  pity  and  makes  him 
suffer  whilst  the  body  of  his  fellow-creature  is  in  pain." 

What  these  qualities  may  at  last  do  for  the  race  in 
really  civilizing  them  into  a  great  brotherhood,  is  a 
dream  that  works  powerfully  upon  the  imagination 
of  this  great  publicist.  His  book  is  not  to  be  appre- 
ciated —  neither  its  faults  nor  virtues  —  apart  from 
this  conception. 

"The  more  I  advanced  in  the  study  of  American  society, 
the  more  I  perceived  that  the  equality  of  conditions  is  the 
fundamental  fact  from  which  all  others  seem  to  be  derived 
and  the  central  point  at  which  all  my  observations  constantly 
terminated." 

To  think  of  de  Tocqueville  and  to  criticise  him 
as  if  he  were  strictly  the  scientific  investigator  is  to 
miss  his  highest  quality.  To  think  of  him  as  in- 

1  Several  foreigners  note  this  kindness  to  animals  as  if  it  were 
new  in  their  experience. 


HIGHER   CRITICISM  159 

stinctively  the  artist,  using  his  imagination  to  create 
a  model  of  democratic  relationship  among  men, 
is  to  see  him  as  he  is.  His  one  sustained  passion 
is  for  freedom,  which  he  calls  the  "sainte  et  legitime 
passion  de  Vhomme."  He  writes  to  Mr.  Reeve, 
"  Je  rfai  qu'une  passion,  I1  amour  de  la  liberti  et  de 
la  dignite  humaine"  It  is  this  which  keeps  him 
from  being  a  good  "party  man."  It  was  this  which 
made  him  fear  that  one  of  our  own  great  dangers 
was  the  possible  tyranny  of  party  majorities.  It 
was  this  which  gave  him  a  prophetic  insight  into  the 
essential  dangers  of  slavery.  And  here  we  touch  one 
of  those  larger  issues  which  is  lighted  up  by  seeing 
it  through  a  great  principle.  That  a  house  divided 
against  itself  could  not  stand  was  a  principle  with 
Abraham  Lincoln.  If  dark  troubles  are  before  us, 
de  Tocqueville  says,  "They  will  be  brought  about 
by  the  presence  of  the  black  race  on  the  soil  of  the 
United  States.  That  is,  they  (the  troubles)  will  owe 
their  origin  not  to  equality,  but  to  the  inequality 
of  conditions."  1  He  sees  that  slavery  must  end, 
but  is  under  no  illusions  that  race  antagonism  will 
then  cease.  Those  who  think  amalgamation  is  a 
solution  "delude  themselves."  "I  am  not  led  to 
any  such  conclusion."  When  they  are  at  last  freed, 
the  social  troubles  will  increase  because  the  negro 
will  demand  political  rights.  He  reads  the  North 
this  lesson,  "Whoever  has  inhabited  the  United 
States  must  have  perceived  that  in  those  parts  of  the 

1  "Democracy  in  America,"  Vol.  II,  p.  315. 


l6o  AS  OTHERS   SEE  US 

Union  in  which  negroes  are  no  longer  slaves,  they 
have  in  no  wise  drawn  nearer  to  the  whites.  On  the 
contrary,  the  prejudice  of  race  appears  to  be  stronger 
in  the  States  which  have  abolished  slavery  than  in 
those  where  it  still  exists;  and  nowhere  is  it  so  in- 
tolerant as  in  those  States  where  servitude  has  never 
been  known." 

Here  is  no  mere  flaying  of  the  South,  as  if  the 
North  had  no  part  in  the  slave  evil,  but  a  perfectly 
true  note  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  National 
Whole.  To  de  Tocqueville  democracy  of  some 
kind  was  inevitable.  It  was  not  to  be  argued  with 
any  more  than  the  passage  of  time.  It  was  not 
perhaps  the  highest  conceivable  social  relation. 
It  certainly  held  within  itself  the  gravest  perils,  but 
that  it  was  becoming  the  fact  to  which  peoples  must 
adjust  themselves  seemed  to  him  like  a  fate.  This 
is  the  clearer  to  us  when  we  see  what  he  meant  by 
democracy.  He  is  not  thinking,  like  so  many  of 
our  critics,  of  democracy  as  a  form  of  government. 
He  is  thinking  of  social  conditions  in  which  the 
utmost  obtainable  equality  exists.  Renan  in  his 
"Caliban"  maintains  that  History  is  "a  good 
aristocrat."  To  de  Tocqueville,  Destiny  is  a  name 
for  the  inevitable  disappearance  of  aristocracy.  It 
is  fundamental  to  him  that  all  sorts  of  people  should 
mingle  and  intervene  more  and  more  in  government. 
If  they  intervene  wisely  and  with  public  spirit,  it 
will  be  a  good  government.  The  equality  of  condi- 

1  "  Democracy  in  America,"  Vol.  II,  p.  460. 


HIGHER   CRITICISM  l6l 

tions  which  he  found  in  this  country  was  what  most 
attracted  him.  He  told  the  French  people  that  they 
too  would  reach  the  same  conditions  even  if  they  did 
not  "draw  the  same  political  consequences." 

With  this  conception  of  democracy  clearly  in 
mind,  we  better  understand  his  opinions,  his  hopes, 
and  his  fears.  His  gloom  over  the  slavery  question 
was  because  he  could  not  see  how  democracy  could 
develop  here  including  the  negro,  even  if  the  slaves 
were  freed.  When  they  come  to  demand  political 
and  other  equalities,  will  the  white  race  submit? 
If  not,  how  can  a  class  rule,  antagonistic  to  democ- 
racy, be  avoided? 

Equality  of  conditions  and  an  increasing  inter- 
vention of  all  in  government,  is  thus  preliminary  in 
de  Tocqueville's  thought.  Just  as  primary  is  it 
that  increase  of  liberty  is  good.  Our  safety  in  the 
United  States  is  this  enlargement  of  freedom,  and 
nothing  subtler  or  truer  can  be  found  in  his  volumes 
than  some  of  the  practical  inferences  from  this 
principle  of  liberty,  as  applied  to  our  political  experi- 
ence. He  sees  that  changes  in  this  country  are  to 
come  with  extraordinary  rapidity,  but  he  does  not 
fear  them.  That  we  ourselves  shall  shrink  before 
the  changes  essential  to  our  best  growth,  is  to  him 
the  real  danger.  That  we  shall  accept  the  situation ; 
that  we  shall  submit  even  with  servility  to  existing 
evils,  is  what  threatens.  To  understand  this  peril, 
if  it  be  such,  we  are  to  see  clearly  what  sort  of  people 
we  are.  One  passage  shows  this  characteristic:  — 


1 62  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

"It  is  strange  to  see  with  what  feverish  ardor  the  Americans 
pursue  their  own  welfare ;  and  to  watch  the  vague  dread  that 
constantly  torments  them  lest  they  should  not  have  chosen  the 
shortest  path  which  may  lead  to  it.  A  native  of  the  United 
States  clings  to  this  world's  goods  as  if  he  were  certain  never 
to  die,  and  is  so  hasty  at  grasping  at  all  within  his  reach,  that 
one  would  suppose  he  was  constantly  afraid  of  not  living  long 
enough  to  enjoy  them.  He  clutches  everything,  he  holds 
nothing  fast,  but  soon  loosens  his  grasp  to  pursue  fresh  grati- 
fication. .  .  . 

"At  first  sight  there  is  something  surprising  in  this  strange 
unrest  of  so  many  happy  men,  uneasy  in  the  midst  of  abun- 
dance. The  spectacle  is,  however,  as  old  as  the  world;  the 
novelty  is  to  see  a  whole  people  furnish  an  example  of  it." 

Here  we  are  in  our  entirety  as  a  nation,  no  temper- 
ing class  excepted,  all  devoted  to  business  and  com- 
mercial interests.  But  why  should  this  fact  lead  to 
checks  upon  liberty,  to  submission,  and  even  to 
servility  ? 1  The  level  from  which  de  Tocqueville 
speaks  is  that  of  the  National  Whole  and  the  Com- 
mon Welfare.  He  has  not  in  mind  temporary 
interests;  much  less  mere  private  interests.  He  is 
thinking  of  large  public  policies  that  include  the 
general  good  and  of  long-range  action  that  includes 
future  social  welfare. 

We  can  to-day  give  a  hundred  illustrations  of 
this  peril  where  the  author  could  have  given  a 
single  one.  Recently  a  flood  devastated  the  City 

1  As  it  is  so  hopeless  in  a  single  chapter  to  touch  one  in  a  score 
of  the  Author's  points,  I  select  one  of  the  most  important  in  the 
hope  of  making  his  purpose  and  spirit  clearer.  I  shall  not  depart 
from  that  spirit  by  translating  it  into  the  language  of  present 
political  experience. 


HIGHER   CRITICISM  163 

of  Pittsburg.  The  enlightened  chief  of  the  For- 
estry Department,  Gifford  Pinchot,  hastens  to  ex- 
plain to  the  public  what  this  means.  Our  losses 
as  a  nation  have  already  run  into  millions  beyond 
any  calculating.  From  every  part  of  the  country, 
the  men  of  science  for  two  decades  have  been 
scattering  among  the  people  a  wholly  disinterested 
report  of  our  "  impending  social  dangers."  It  is 
true  we  have  made  a  brave  beginning  in  heeding 
warnings,  but  at  the  most  important  points,  the 
public  safety  and  future  welfare  are  so  fiercely 
opposed  by  pulp  and  timber  interests  as  to  defeat 
the  most  elementary  work  in  safeguarding  society. 
Pittsburgh  jeopardy  is  but  one  among  hundreds, 
but  it  strikes  a  great  city  and  may  be  seen.  That 
the  people  may  get  some  hint  of  its  meaning,  Mr. 
Pinchot  speaks  through  the  press  as  follows :  — 

"The  great  flood  which  has  wrought  devastation  and  ruin 
to  the  Upper  Ohio  Valley  is  due  fundamentally  to  the  cutting 
away  of  the  forests  on  the  watersheds  of  the  Allegheny  and 
Monongahela  rivers.  These  streams  have  their  source  in  the 
heart  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  which  are  high  and  steep 
and  receive  a  heavy  rainfall.  The  valleys  through  which 
these  mountain  streams  flow  are  narrow  and  deep.  Originally 
these  steep  mountain  slopes  contained  as  fine  hardwood 
forests  as  existed  in  the  country.  Beneath  the  tree  tops  a 
heavy  undergrowth  and  thick  cover  of  leaves  on  the  ground, 
and  the  intertwining  roots  of  trees  and  shrubs  so  held  back 
the  water  from  rains  and  melting  snow  that  dangerous  floods 
seldom  occurred. 

"Cutting  of  the  timber  has  gone  on  to  such  an  extent  that 
not  enough  oak  and  chestnut  can  be  obtained  now  to  supply 


164  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

ties  to  the  railroads  which  run  through  the  region.  Fire  has 
followed  cutting  and  aided  in  the  work  of  destruction  by  burn- 
ing up  the  underbrush  and  leaf  cover  until  many  mountain 
slopes  are  absolutely  barren,  and  water  rushes  from  them  as 
from  a  house  roof.  The  ruin  of  the  mountains  is  now  accom- 
plishing the  ruin  of  the  valley.  All  along  the  Allegheny  and 
Monongahela  rivers  and  far  down  the  Ohio  Valley  are  wreck 
and  devastation.  Disease  will  come  when  its  fruitful  germs 
shall  have  multiplied  over  every  foot  of  the  inundated  valley. 
"The  value  of  the  property  destroyed  in  this  one  flood  is 
probably  sufficient  to  buy  enough  land  at  the  head  waters  of 
these  streams  to  fully  protect  them.  Great  floods  are  becoming 
common  occurrences  upon  the  eastern  rivers  which  have  their 
sources  in  the  high  mountains.  Such  floods,  with  increasing 
intensity,  must  be  expected  from  year  to  year  until  the  im- 
portant watersheds  are  protected." 

The  fatuous  outcry  that  a  wise  forestry  policy  is 
"un-American";  that  it  is  to  be  opposed  because  it 
is  "socialism,"  will,  of  course,  continue,  although  the 
most  conservative  governments  in  the  world  have 
long  practised  it  with  such  conspicuous  success,  from 
the  public  point  of  view,  that  the  very  cranks  of 
conservatism  no  longer  question  it. 

With  careless  prodigality,  we  have  scattered  these 
most  primary  sources  of  wealth,  precisely  as  we 
scattered  transportation  and  other  franchises  upon 
which  dangerous  private  monopolies  were  built. 
With  the  franchises,  we  have  in  this  generation  come 
to  see  clearly  the  kind  of  mistakes  that  have  been 
made.  In  the  teeth  of  extreme  difficulties,  we  are 
trying  to  protect  the  public  through  legislative  con- 
trol of  these  corporations.  We  are  learning  the 


HIGHER   CRITICISM  165 

same  lesson  in  our  forestry.  We  have  the  lesson 
still  to  learn  as  applied  to  the  remaining  mining, 
pasture,  and  oil  lands.  If  it  was  a  weakness,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  de  Tocqueville  dealt  too  much 
with  large  abstract  principles,  it  was  also  the  source 
of  strength,  as  in  this  instance.  He  knew  that  the 
"benevolent  despot"  could  act  for  the  nation  as  a 
whole.  Could  a  large  invertebrate  democracy  like 
ours  escape  from  the  clutch  of  short-range  compet- 
ing interests?  Could  such  a  democracy  rise  to 
this  working  conception  of  the  Commonwealth  as 
against  the  terrible  political  pressure  of  "the 
interests"? 

It  is  this  problem  at  the  present  moment  that  is 
testing  our  democracy  as  by  fire.  De  Tocqueville 
saw  the  nature  of  it  with  the  same  seerlike  vision  with 
which  he  saw  the  real  nature  of  the  negro  problem. 
It  is  not,  he  says,  liberty  that  we  have  to  fear,  but  the 
hesitations  and  conservatism  of  practical  business 
interests.  Whatever  a  wise  monarch  may  do,  no 
democracy  realizes  this  kind  of  peril  until  population 
has  so  developed  as  to  evoke  a  variety  of  interests, 
that  finally  come  into  conscious  conflict.  Lumber, 
grazing,  mining,  control  of  water  powers,  furnish 
such  an  illustration  at  the  present  moment.  It  is 
out  of  this  narrower  conflict  that  the  larger  public 
interest  slowly  emerges,  so  that  it  can  be  seen  as 
something  above  and  apart  from  any  or  all  of  these 
immediate  pecuniary  concerns.  Nothing  in  the 
statesmanship  of  President  Roosevelt  will  win  him 


1 66  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

surer  laurels  in  the  future  than  his  pluck  and  con- 
sistency toward  this  policy  which  stands  for  the 
whole  people  and  for  the  future.  For  the  first  time 
in  our  history,  we  have  from  the  Chief  Executive 
the  full  purpose  of  this  social  policy  outlined.  "  Min- 
eral fields,  like  the  forests  and  navigable  streams, 
should  be  treated  as  public  utilities." 

"It  would  surely  be  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  this  country 
if  some  at  least  of  the  coal  fields  of  the  East,  and  especially  of 
the  anthracite  fields,  had  been  left  under  the  control  of  the 
Government.  Let  us  provide  in  the  West  against  the  recur- 
rence of  the  conditions  which  we  deplore  in  the  East. 

"The  withdrawal  of  these  coal  lands  would  constitute  a 
policy  analogous  to  that  which  has  been  followed  in  with- 
drawing the  forest  lands  from  ordinary  settlement.  The 
coal,  like  the  forests,  should  be  treated  as  the  property  of  the 
public  and  its  disposal  should  be  under  conditions  which 
would  go  to  the  benefit  of  the  public  as  a  whole. 

"This  Government  should  not  now  repeat  the  mistakes  of 
the  past.  Let  us  not  do  what  the  next  generation  cannot 
undo.  We  have  a  right  to  the  proper  use  of  both  the  forests 
and  the  fuel  during  our  lifetime,  but  we  should  not  dispose 
of  the  birthright  of  our  children.  If  this  Government  sells  its 
remaining  fuel  lands,  they  pass  out  of  its  future  control.  If  it 
now  leases  them,  we  retain  control,  and  a  future  Congress  will 
be  at  liberty  to  decide  whether  it  will  continue  or  change  this 
policy." 

Will  our  legislators  be  strong  enough  and  inde- 
pendent enough  to  act  for  all  of  us,  rather  than  for 
the  few  struggling  for  privilege?  To  know  that  our 
dangers  are  in  the  servility  of  the  politicians  to  local 
and  private  business  at  the  points  where  these  conflict 


HIGHER   CRITICISM  167 

with  public  weal,  is  to  "  see  the  enemy, "  as  de  Tocque- 
ville  conceives  him  in  a  democracy. 

It  was  of  de  Tocqueville  that  Mill  was  thinking 
when  he  used  the  term,  "The  American  Many," 
as  representing  so  exclusively  the  business  class  that 
"impose  upon  all  the  rest  of  society  its  own  type, 
forcing  all  to  submit  to  it  or  to  imitate  it."  1  Yet 
de  Tocqueville  does  not  abate  one  jot  of  his  faith  in 
democracy.  He  holds  to  liberty  because  it  "corrects 
the  abuse  of  liberty."  "  Extreme  democracy  ob- 
viates the  dangers  of  democracy."  2  Yet  the  hand- 
maid of  freedom  must  be  a  vigilant  and  universal 
discipline.  No  one  ever  put  more  trust  in  popular 
education  as  a  remedy.  Nor  does  any  incidental 
evil  discourage  him.  There  is  extreme  severity  in 
his  judgment  upon  our  Press :  — 

"The  journalists  of  the  United  States  are  generally  in  a 
very  humble  position,  with  a  scanty  education  and  a  vulgar 
turn  of  mind.3 

"The  characteristics  of  the  American  journalist  consist  in 
an  open  and  coarse  appeal  to  the  passions  of  his  readers;  he 
abandons  principles  to  assail  the  characters  of  individuals,  to 
track  them  into  private  life,  and  disclose  all  their  weaknesses 
and  vices. 

"Nothing  can  be  more  deplorable  than  this  abuse  of  the 
powers  of  thought." 

"The  personal  opinions  of  the  editors  have  no  weight  in  the 
eyes  of  the  public:  what  they  seek  in  a  newspaper  is  a  knowl- 
edge of  facts,  and  it  is  only  by  altering  or  distorting  those  facts 

1  Edinburgh  Review,  October,  1840. 

2  "Democracy  in  America,"  p.  250. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  237. 


1 68  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

that  a  journalist  can  contribute  to  the  support  of  his  own 
views."  l 

Yet  the  principle  of  freedom  means  to  him  so 
much  that  no  hand  should  be  laid  upon  this  press. 

"The  more  I  consider  the  independence  of  the  press  in  its 
principal  consequences,  the  more  am  I  convinced  that,  in  the 
modern  world,  it  is  the  chief,  and,  so  to  speak,  the  constitutive 
element  of  liberty.  A  nation  which  is  determined  to  remain 
free  is  therefore  right  in  demanding,  at  any  price,  the  exercise 
of  this  independence."  2 

De  Tocqueville's  faith  in  liberty  is  not  academic ; 
it  is  not  merely  a  reasoned  sentiment.  It  has  in 
it  something  like  a  moral  and  religious  trust.  In 
spite  of  all  that  frightens  him  in  the  actual  working 
of  our  institutions,  his  eye  is  steadily  fixed  upon  the 
disciplinary  value  of  an  entire  people  exercising  a 
free  choice  on  all  that  determines  their  destinies.  If 
the  race  is  ever  to  be  educated  to  self-government, 
it  must  be  through  the  reaction  of  consequences  of 
right  and  wrong  acts.  He  speaks  of  "this  perilous 
liberty,"  yet  sees  that  already,  as  he  compares  us 
with  Europe,  the  balance  is  on  our  side.  It  has  great 
significance  to  him  that  while  we  have  plenty  of 
"factions,"  there  was  nowhere  a  sign  of  secret  "con- 
spiracies" such  as  have  been  the  bane  of  many 
aristocracies.  Everything  comes  to  the  surface  — 
coarseness,  clamor,  bad  taste,  vituperation;  but 
that  all  this  can  come  out  is  our  safety.  More  than 
any  one  thing,  in  his  opinion,  universal  suffrage  will 

1  "Democracy  in  America,"  p.  238.  2  Ibid.,  p.  245. 


HIGHER  CRITICISM  169 

protect  us  from  the  real  perils  of  a  factional  spirit, 
as  it  will  guard  us  from  other  perils.  It  has,  for 
example,  become  a  platitude  that,  in  spite  of  all  our 
frailties,  great  and  threatening  emergencies  bring 
out  the  real  character  and  strength  of  the  people. 
In  proof  of  this,  de  Tocqueville  had  but  a  fraction 
of  the  evidence  to  which  we  may  now  appeal,  yet  he 
writes  this  eloquent  passage :  — 

"But  it  is  more  common,  both  with  nations  and  individuals, 
to  find  extraordinary  virtues  developed  from  the  very  immi- 
nence of  the  danger.  Great  characters  are  then  brought  into 
relief,  as  the  edifices  which  are  usually  concealed  by  the  gloom 
of  night  are  illuminated  by  the  glare  of  a  conflagration.  At 
those  dangerous  times,  genius  no  longer  hesitates  to  come 
forward ;  and  the  people,  alarmed  by  the  perils  of  their  situa- 
tion, bury  their  envious  passions  in  a  short  oblivion.  Great 
names  may  then  be  drawn  from  the  urn  of  election."  l 

It  adds  to  the  impressiveness  of  de  Tocqueville's 
faith  in  our  destinies  that  with  all  his  continuous 
study  of  the  United  States  until  the  time  of  his  death, 
his  confidence  increased  rather  than  diminished. 
Had  he  lived  to  see  the  results  of  the  Civil  War,  his 
most  formidable  fears  would  have  disappeared. 
He  could  not  help  thinking  of  our  States  as  little 
nations  which  would  not  hold  together.  They 
might  still  be  democratic,  but  the  territory  was  so 
vast  and  interests  were  so  diverse,  that  all  sorts  of 
rivalries  would  break  out  to  threaten  the  unity  of  the 
whole.  "If  the  sovereignty  of  the  Union,"  he  says, 
"were  to  engage  in  a  struggle  with  that  of  the  States, 

1  Ibid.,  p.  257. 


170  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

at  the  present  day,  its  defeat  may  be  confidently 
predicted."  l  He,  of  course,  could  not  see  at  that 
date,  how  steam  transportation  on  land  and  water 
was  to  bind  these  " little  nations"  into  a  unity  of 
recognized  interests  capable  of  resisting  any  probable 
strain. 

Another  misgiving  was  just  as  vain.  Toward  the 
close  of  the  second  volume,  he  reflects  upon  the 
chance  of  war.  Would  not  the  successful  soldier 
seduce  the  imagination  of  democracy  ?  He  writes :  — 

"I  foresee  that  all  the  military  rulers  who  may  rise  up  in 
great  democratic  nations  will  find  it  easier  to  conquer  with 
their  armies  than  to  make  their  armies  live  at  peace  after 
conquest.  There  are  two  things  which  a  democratic  people 
will  always  find  very  difficult,  —  to  begin  a  war  and  to  end 
it."  2 

These  last  words,  "and  to  end  it,"  have  a  strange 
sound  as  we  remember  what  actually  followed  one 
of  the  most  terrible  conflicts  in  history:  the  rapid 
and  peaceful  return  of  armies  North  and  South  to 
their  ordinary  tasks. 

Just  as  little  did  he  foresee  certain  evils  that  were 
even  then  beginning  to  appear.  He  could  not  be- 
lieve that  we  were  to  have  great  inequality  of  for- 
tunes. He  could  see  no  paupers,  nor  any  tendency 
to  produce  them.  The  party  system  with  the  rise 
of  the  boss  and  the  spoils  to  the  victor  did  not  disturb 
his  imagination.  He  had  no  intimation  of  the 
astounding  growth  of  great  cities  and  their  reaction 

1  "Democracy  in  America,"  p.  497. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  329. 


HIGHER    CRITICISM  17 1 

on  our  national  life.  He  was  very  confident  that 
we  were  safe  from  dangerous  bribery  because  "there 
are  so  many  to  be  bought."  If  he  could  have 
"listened  ahead"  a  single  generation,  he  might  have 
heard  a  railroad  magnate  say,  "There  are  too  many 
to  buy  in  the  legislature,  I  prefer  to  deal  with  the 
Boss."  1  It  is  also  strange  to  us  that  the  office  of 
the  President  seemed  to  him  so  feeble  a  thing,  and 
likely  to  remain  so.  People  talked  to  him  of  their 
respective  States,  not  of  the  Nation.  They  were 
proud  of  the  State,  thought  about  it,  read  about  it, 
and  showed  little  interest  in  affairs  at  the  Capitol. 
As  the  average  citizen  takes  up  the  morning  paper 
to-day,  what  is  it  that  claims  his  attention?  Does 
he  look  first  at  the  politics  of  his  State?  Is  it  the 
affairs  of  the  State  that  first  touch  his  imagination,  or 
does  he  turn  to  the  great  events  which  centre  in  and 
radiate  from  the  National  Capitol  ?  To  answer  this 
is  to  mark  one  of  the  profoundest  changes  in  our 
recent  history.  We  shall  see  it  take  even  more 
dramatic  form  as  measured  from  Mr.  Bryce's  com- 
ment less  than  twenty-five  years  ago. 

If  I  were  to  summarize  in  a  paragraph  what  seems 
to  me  of  highest  value  in  these  volumes,  it  would  be 
the  revelation  of  the  character  and  temper  of  the 
Author  as  he  faces  the  thing  called  Democracy. 

1  Ibid.,  p.  245. 

"Perhaps  in  democracies,  the  number  of  men  who  might  be 
bought  is  not  smaller,  but  buyers  are  rarely  to  be  found;  and,  be- 
sides, it  would  be  necessary  to  buy  so  many  persons  at  once,  that 
the  attempt  would  be  useless."  —  Ibid.,  p.  287. 


172  AS  OTHERS  SEE   US 

He  did  not  altogether  like  it.  From  some  of  its 
manifestations  and  some  of  its  consequences  he 
shrank.  He  did  not,  therefore,  because  of  incidental 
evils,  turn  his  back  upon  it  or  turn  into  that  dreary 
nuisance,  the  chronic  and  petulant  critic.  There  is 
a  positive  and  constructive  purpose  in  his  sharpest 
thrusts.  This  high-born  gentleman  accepts  without 
any  fussy  reserves  the  principle  of  self-government. 
The  people  and  all  the  people  are  to  learn  the  highest 
of  all  arts.  They  are  to  learn  it  through  much 
suffering  and  through  costly  mistakes.  Without 
one  whining  note,  Alexis  de  Tocqueville  took  his 
part  in  the  great  discipline.  So  far  as  his  example 
and  precept  count  with  men,  Democracy  is  safe. 
Of  the  things  threatening  which  he  saw  and  prophe- 
sied, Bryce  says :  — 

"Of  these  clouds  one  rose  till  it  covered  the  whole  sky, 
broke  in  a  thunderstorm  and  disappeared.  Some  have 
silently  melted  into  the  blue.  Some  still  hang  on  the  horizon, 
darkening  large  parts  of  the  landscape." 

What  these  remaining  shadows  are  we  shall  see 
in  the  chapter  on  his  peer  and  successor,  James 
Bryce. 


CHAPTER  X 

OUR  FRENCH  VISITORS 

THE  first  French  books  that  follow  the  Revolution 
are  full  of  geniality  and  even  flattery.  It  was  long 
the  custom  to  quote  these  genuine  aristocrats  "who 
knew  what  manners  were,"  as  an  offset  to  the  snub- 
bing we  received  at  the  hands  of  the  English  writers. 

A  good  example  of  this  extreme  amiability  is  in 
three  volumes  of  travels  by  Brissot  de  Warville. 
As  so  many  of  the  early  English  confess  that  their 
object  in  coming  was  to  discredit  us,  this  young 
aristocrat  comes  to  study  our  social  and  political 
conditions  for  a  purpose  which  glowingly  appears  in 
his  preface  as  follows :  — 

"O  Frenchmen,  who  wish  for  this  valuable  instruction, 
study  the  Americans  of  the  present  day.  Open  this  book. 
You  will  see  here  to  what  degree  of  prosperity  the  blessings 
of  freedom  can  elevate  the  industry  of  man ;  how  they  dignify 
his  nature,  and  dispose  him  to  universal  fraternity.  You  will 
here  learn  by  what  means  liberty  is  preserved ;  that  the  great 
secret  of  its  duration  is  in  good  morals.  It  is  a  truth  that  the 
observation  of  the  present  state  of  America  demonstrates  at 
every  step.  Thus  you  will  see  in  these  travels,  the  prodigious 
effect  of  liberty  on  morals,  on  industry,  and  on  the  ameliora- 
tion of  men." 

173 


174  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

He  lands  in  Boston :  — 

"With  what  joy,  my  good  friend,  did  I  leap  to  this  shore 
of  liberty!  ...  I  flew  from  despotism,  and  came  at  last  to 
enjoy  the  spectacle  of  liberty  among  a  people  where  nature, 
education,  and  habit  had  engraved  the  equality  of  rights, 
which  everywhere  else  is  treated  as  a  chimera.  With  what 
pleasure  did  I  contemplate  this  town  !  .  .  .  I  thought  myself 
in  that  Salentum  of  which  the  lively  pencil  of  Fenelon  has  left 
us  so  charming  an  image.  But  the  prosperity  of  this  new 
Salentum  was  not  the  work  of  one  man,  of  King  or  Minister; 
it  is  the  fruit  of  liberty,  that  mother  of  industry." 

The  Bostonians  unite  simplicity  of  morals  with 
that  French  politeness  and  delicacy  of  manners 
which  renders  virtue  more  amiable.  They  are 
hospitable  to  strangers  and  obliging  to  friends. 
They  are  tender  husbands,  fond  and  almost  idolatrous 
parents,  and  kind  masters.  Also  "  neatness  without 
luxury  is  a  characteristic  feature  of  this  purity  of 
manners;  and  this  neatness  is  seen  everywhere  at 
Boston,  in  their  dress,  in  their  houses,  and  in  their 
churches." 

Alas,  this  is  not  observation,  it  is  rhapsody.  It  is 
in  so  high  a  strain  that  this  courtly  gentleman  moved 
and  spoke  among  us  in  those  homespun  days.  There 
are  recorded  compliments  in  the  same  key  by 
the  Duke  de  la  Rochefoucauld-Liancourt.  He 
says  of  the  President's  balls,  that  the  "splendor 
of  the  rooms  and  the  variety  and  richness  of 
the  dresses  did  not  suffer  in  comparison  with 
Europe."  De  la  Rochefoucauld  was  much  in 


OUR    FRENCH   VISITORS  175 

Philadelphia  society,  of  whose  assemblies  he  writes, 
"It  is  impossible  to  meet  with  what  is  called  a  plain 
woman."  No  suspicion  attaches  to  this  gallantry; 
but  when  Max  O'Rell  told  us  a  few  years  ago  that 
he  travelled  six  months  in  the  United  States  with- 
out seeing  one  plain  woman,  we  remember  that 
he  was  looking  for  lecture  engagements.1  There  is 
much  of  this  benevolent  myopia  in  the  whole  group 
of  French  critics  during  the  entire  generation  that 
followed  the  Revolution.  The  French  had  helped 
us  largely  because  of  their  intense  hatred  and  fear 
of  the  English.  The  French  became  our  literary 
champions  as  naturally  as  they  defended  us  with 
their  ships  and  arms.  This  impulse  to  vindicate 
us  against  the  English  shows  itself  as  late  as  de 
Tocqueville.  He  finds  American  morals  "very 
superior  to  their  progenitors,  the  English."  2 
Of  the  English  abuse  of  our  manners  he  says : 3  — 

"The  English  make  game  of  the  manners  of  the  Americans ; 
but  it  is  singular  that  most  of  the  writers  who  have  drawn  these 
ludicrous  delineations  belonged  themselves  to  the  middle 
classes  in  England,  to  whom  the  same  delineations  are  ex- 
ceedingly applicable;  so  that  these  pitiless  censors  furnish, 
for  the  most  part,  an  example  of  the  very  thing  they  blame  in 
the  United  States ;  they  do  not  perceive  that  they  are  deriding 
themselves  to  the  great  amusement  of  the  aristocracy  of  their 
own  country." 

1  In  "  Jonathan  and  His  Continent,"  p.  18. 

2  Vol.  II,  p.  249. 

3  Ibid. 

So  Sara  Bernhardt,  coming  to  fill  her  coffers,  never  lands  in 
New  York  without  assuring  the  American  people  through  the  re- 


176  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

It  is  thus,  with  regret,  that  we  have  to  put  aside 
these  first  Gallic  flatteries.  They  have  precisely 
the  same  value  as  the  ultra  fault-finding  of  the 
English.  They  are  neither  more  nor  less  to  be 
trusted  as  important  critics.  De  Tocqueville  is 
not  to  be  classed  among  these  overzealous  friends. 
He  sets  the  note  of  the  discriminating  but  sym- 
pathetic student  which  continues  through  Chevalier 
until  our  own  day,  when  it  has  become  a  fashion 
among  the  French  to  make  flying  trips  to  this  country. 
Too  many  of  them  begin  to  write  on  the  steamer 
coming  out ;  take  their  first  impressions  as  a  finality, 
giving  them  literary  form  so  rapidly  that  the  book  is 
on  the  Boulevards  soon  after  their  return.  Even  if 
the  chapters  totter  with  mistakes,  they  are  likely  to 
be  more  racily  entertaining  than  English  and  German 
books  of  serious  merit. 

One  wonders,  nevertheless,  why  so  many  of  them 
should  be  destitute  of  the  slightest  critical  values.1 
I  put  this  question  to  a  professor  of  French  in  Har- 
vard College.  He  replied  that  "they  either  had  no 
real  knowledge  of  English,  or  knew  it  just  enough  to 
deceive  them  into  thinking  they  knew  it  —  which 
was  worse."  Not  a  few  of  these  latter-day  writers 
are  so  slovenly  and  inaccurate  that  they  serve  ad- 
mirably as  books  of  humor.  It  is  an  ancient 

porters  that  "no  country  touches  the  heart  like  America."  At  her 
last  landing,  she  delights  in  the  increase  of  gracious  and  delicate 
manners. 

1  The  one  exception  in  the  most  superficial  of  them  is  their 
comments  on  our  theatre. 


OUR   FRENCH   VISITORS  177 

observation  that  the  French  care  so  -little  about 
other  countries,  that  they  rarely  learn  to  spell  cor- 
rectly the  commonest  names.  There  is  such  tenacity 
in  this  habit  that  it  finally  surprises  the  reader  if 
now  and  then  they  get  the  word  right.  To  avoid 
extremes,  here,  for  instance,  is  a  new  book  by  a 
highly  educated  man  who  has  been  at  least  eight 
years  in  this  country.  He  was  given  every  chance 
to  correct  his  proofs.  A  few  of  the  spellings  are 
these:  "Lettery;  New  Hawen,  Coan,  for  New 
Haven,  Conn. ;  Boss  Crotker ;  Tessenden  for 
Fessenden;  Cark  Schurtz."  Arnold's  first  name 
is  now  Mathew  and  then  Matthew.  Thus  far  the 
case  is  extremely  mild.  "  My  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin," 
"Long-Fellow"  (by  one  who  had  visited  the  poet), 
"Athlantic  Monthly";  the  poor  White  House  seri- 
ously turned  into  "Execution  Mansion";  "Howard 
College,"  for  Harvard;  the  City  of  Churches  trans- 
formed into  "Broakline";  the  Nutmeg  State  into 
" Conettocutt,"  and  "New  Jersia,"  fairly  represent 
the  new  spelling.  "Teatotlar"  is  so  often  used  that 
it  obviously  conveys  the  idea  to  the  writer  that  tea 
was  the  adopted  substitute  for  rum  and  thus  gave 
the  name  to  the  party.  "Washington  Irwing," 
"Rock-Chair,"  "Wahash,"  for  Wabash,  "Huddson 
River,"  the  "  Poet  Wittier,"  and  proud  Chicago  tor- 
tured into  "  Chicorgua" ;  the  Mohawk,  "  Mohuwek," 
and  the  "La  cofoco  party"  are  others  in  the  same 
kind.  These  are  a  driblet  in  the  main  torrent  of 
misspellings.  Even  present-day  philosophers  write 


178  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

"Williams"  James.  I  had  long  believed  that  they 
were  merely  typographical  errors,  but  there  is  authori- 
tative proof  that  they  represent,  for  the  most  part, 
indifference  or  sheer  carelessness  of  observation. 
The  quality  which  helps  account  for  this  is  stated 
with  great  frankness  by  M.  Blouet  (Max  O'Rell) : l  - 

"Ask  the  first  hundred  Frenchmen  you  meet  in  the  streets 
of  Paris  what  is  the  name  of  the  president  of  the  United  States ; 
you  will  find  ninety-nine  of  them  unable  to  tell  you.  The 
Frenchman  is  exclusive  to  the  point  of  stupidity,  and  that 
which  is  not  French  possesses  no  interest  for  him." 

This  is  the  stark  provincialism  for  which  Paris  has 
long  been  noted. 

No  small  part  of  this  literature  is  by  journalists 
who  have  in  mind  the  group  of  French  readers  for 
whom  they  write.  To  entertain  Parisians  by  pretty 
paradoxes  and  lively  drolleries  is  as  exclusively  their 
aim  as  it  was  the  aim  of  Tom  Moore  to  amuse  the 
English  diners-out.  They  often  follow  so  nearly 
the  same  route,  see  so  nearly  the  same  objects,  and 
make  merry  with  the  same  characteristics,  that  each 
newcomer  seems  to  have  read  the  same  books  and  to 
have  taken  instructions  from  the  previous  voyager. 
They  drive  to  the  Waldorf-Astoria,  of  which  a  minute 
pen-picture  never  fails.  The  device  in  the  room 
by  which  one  may  order  thirty  things,  few  of  which 
any  one  ever  wants,  divides  their  attention  with 
ice-water  and  the  price  of  cabs.  The  next  step  is 
to  hunt  up  a  restaurant  which  reminds  them  enough 

1  "Jonathan  and  His  Continent,"  p.  137. 


OUR   FRENCH   VISITORS  179 

of  Paris  to  make  life  endurable.  If  the  heaven  of 
the  Smart  Set  at  Newport  or  elsewhere  is  open  to 
them,  the  rest  of  the  country  grievously  suffers. 
One  feels  this  even  in  so  brilliant  a  writer  as  Paul 
Bourget.1  The  next  dash  (by  way  of  Niagara)  is  for 
the  West,  where  they  struggle  desperately  with  two 
phenomena  —  Chicago  and  the  Cowboy.  They 
are  stunned  by  Chicago  and  the  packing  houses,  but 
the  Cowboy  electrifies  them.  The  return  trip  is  sure 
to  include  the  South  for  the  sake  of  a  chapter  on  the 
Negro  problem.  This  dark  enigma  is  the  only  dis- 
comfiture. They  do  not  even  make  it  interesting. 
There  are  at  least  twenty  of  these  volumes  from 
which  one  could  remove  the  various  and  picturesque 
titles,  replacing  them  by  "A  Whole  Afternoon  in  the 
United  States."  Of  some  of  them  one  would  have 
to  say  that  this  half  day  was  very  ill  spent. 

One  Paris  exquisite,  whose  object  was  clearly  to 
create  a  sensation  among  his  friends,  lands  in  New 
York,  but  is  so  instantly  undone  by  our  rude  ways, 
that  he  straightway  returns  to  Paris.  "Je  n'ai  pas 
pu  supporter  le  coup" — it  was  too  insufferable. 
This  is  far  better  than  writing  his  book.  He  spared 
himself  that  trouble,  and  yet  gave  the  shock  of  sur- 
prise and  delight  to  his  friends. 

Between  this  vivacious  squad  of  journalists2  and 

1  "Outre  Mer,"  two  volumes.     It  excites  much  curiosity,  for  in- 
stance, to  know  whether  the  lynching  was  really  seen  as  described. 

2  Much  better  are  two  books,  "Choses  d'Amerique,"  by  Max 
Leclaire,  with  an  interesting  discussion  of  Catholicism  in  the  United 
States,  and  "La  Femme  aux  Etats  Unis,"  by  M.  C.  de  Varigny,  in 


l8o  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

serious  inquirers  like  Le  Play,  Carlier,1  Claudio 
Janet,  the  Marquis  de  Rousier,  and  Madame  Blanc2 
the  gap  is  like  that  between  Brissot  and  de  Tocque- 
ville.  Le  Play's  pioneer  work  in  sociology  has  de- 
veloped into  an  educational  interest  which  has  sent 

which  we  are  told  why  women  have  become  the  equals  of  our  men. 
"Flirt,  amour,  mariage,"  all  get  respectful  attention. 

1  A  work  of  extraordinary  learning  is  "  La  R6publique  Ameri- 
caine,"  by  the  French  lawyer,  Auguste  Carlier.    This  savant  came 
in  1855,  stayed  two  years,  and  formed  intimate  relations  with  men 
like  Sumner,  Benton,  Quincy,  Ticknor,  Everett,  and  Longfellow. 
His  larger  work  in  four  stiff  volumes,  if  not  in  the  class  of  Bryce 
and  de  Tocqueville,  is  a  profound  study.     He  had  before  its  pub- 
lication written  a  volume  on  Marriage  in  the  United  States,  1860; 
one  on  Slavery  two  years  later;    two  volumes  on  general  history, 
especially  in  relation  to  the  Indians,  1864;  and  still  another,  "The 
Acclimatization  of  Races  in  the  United  States,"  1868.     Nearly  a 
quarter  of  a  century  was  given  to  his  crowning  work,  "  The  Ameri- 
can Republic."     Carlier  is  very  critical  of  de  Tocqueville  because 
of  his  taste  for  large  and  brilliant  generalization,  founded  on  what 
is  thought  to  be  insufficient  evidence.     He  does  not  even  let  Mr. 
Bryae  off  without  some  strictures,  chiefly  because  of  the  omissions 
in  the  "American  Commonwealth."     No  further  use  is  here  made 
of  Carlier  because  he  is  too  exclusively  for  the  student.     The  same 
must  also  be  said  of  Le  Play. 

2  A  brilliant  exception  to  this  troup  of  travelling  dilettanti  is 
Madame  Blanc,  writing  under  the  pseudonym  of  Th.  Bentzon.    She 
was  several  times  in  this  country  preparing  carefully  such  studies 
as  "Choses  et  Gens  d'Amerique,"  "R6cits  Americains,"  "Ques- 
tions   AmeYicaines,"    "Femmes    d'Amerique,"    and    "Nouvelle 
France  et  Nouvelle  Angleterre."     She  has  an  insistent  purpose 
"to  make  my  own  people  really  see  the  Americans  as  they  are." 
Writing  for  many  years  through  the  most  distinguished  literary 
organ,  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  no  one  has  done  more  than 
Madame  Blanc  to  get  some  elementary  notions  about  the  large 
facts  of  American  life  into  the  French  mind. 


OUR   FRENCH   VISITORS  l8l 

us  some  of  the  most  conscientious  students  that  have 
ever  come.  Through  the  service  of  the  Muse*e 
Social  they  are  making  the  life  and  institutions  of 
this  country  known  to  France.  Kenan's  horror  of 
everything  American  has  given  way  to  honest  desires 
at  least  to  understand  the  United  States. 

From  the  dozen  volumes  that  one  would  venture 
to  recommend,  I  select  a  rather  miscellaneous  job- 
lot  of  observations  that  may  do  some  critical  service. 

There  is  first  the  intelligent  recognition  that  one 
does  not  get  into  real  touch  with  us  until  one  learns 
that  to  see  the  American  at  all,  he  must  be  seen 
in  several  places.  This  sounds  commonplace,  but 
how  many  travellers  realize  it,  or  act  upon  it  in  their 
judgments?  A  Dutch  jurist  spent  some  months  in 
this  country  at  tasks  which  compelled  him  to  visit 
business  men  in  their  offices  in  the  pressure  of  the 
day's  work.  He  said,  "  Until  I  went  into  their  homes 
and  saw  them  off  duty,  I  thought  their  manners 
outrageous.  I  was  saved  from  stupid  injustice  by 
seeing  them  at  their  own  tables  and  clubs."  There 
is  no  class  to  which  this  does  not  apply.  No  per- 
spective is  true  about  morals,  manners,  or  achieve- 
ments that  does  not  include  several  phases  of  the 
subject  scrutinized.  It  is  this  same  larger  and  more 
patient  spirit  in  classifying  impressions,  upon  which 
Le  Play  laid  such  emphasis,  that  enables  de  Rousier 
to  read  us  a  wholesome  lesson. 

For  a  growing  number  of  American  families, 
there  is  excellent  educational  material  in  some  of  the 


1 82  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

"shocks"  which  these  gay  Frenchmen  suffer;  as 
for  instance,  in  that  enduring  superstition  that  the 
moral  destiny  of  the  family  is  really  dependent  upon 
rigid  punctuality  at  a  common  and  united  breakfast 
table. 

A  French  scholar  is  staying  with  a  well-to-do 
family  in  which  no  exigency  of  business  or  school 
appointments,  no  lack  of  domestic  service  or  tyran- 
nous duties  of  the  mistress  could  have  been  given  as 
a  reason,  but  because  a  daughter  was  ten  minutes 
late  for  the  seven  o'clock  breakfast,  "the  father 
showed  great  annoyance,  which  was  all  the  more 
severe  and  disagreeable  because  he  took  on  a  high 
moral  tone." 

The  visitor  finds  it  an  iron  law  in  that  household 
that  all  members  shall  be  as  punctual  as  at  military 
dress-parade.  He  asks  innocently  why  seven  people 
should  be  expected  to  march  in  on  stroke  of  the 
clock.  The  inquiry  occasions  great  surprise.  The 
parental  explanations  leave  him  less  than  ever  con- 
vinced that  the  custom  is  good  for  this  type  of  family. 
It  had  already  gone  into  his  docket  as  an  American 
superstition,  when  the  young  lady  found  some  oppor- 
tunity to  give  her  own  exposition.  "It  is  a  super- 
stition and  a  very  immoral  one.  It  always  starts 
the  day  wrong  at  least  for  two  of  us.  You  may 
wake  people  up  at  the  same  time,  but  you  can't  wake 
up  their  stomachs  at  the  same  time.  I  am  hungry 
and  therefore  happy  if  I  can  eat  at  eight  or  nine  or 
when  I  like,  and  I  am  glad  to  get  my  own  breakfast. 


OUR    FRENCH   VISITORS  183 

With  this  wicked  punctuality,  some  of  us  are  glum 
or  irritable,  and  almost  the  only  family  unpleasant- 
ness we  ever  have  can  be  traced  straight  to  this 
seven  o'clock  breakfast."  To  this  guest,  the 
daughter's  outburst  came  as  a  gleam  of  hope.  He 
found  us  much  too  taciturn  in  our  family  life; 
far  too  little  given  to  affectionate  gaieties  of  com- 
mon conversation. 

The  one  step  to  help  this,  he  thinks,  is  "  to  individ- 
ualize the  breakfast ;  to  allow  sleep,  the  great  healer, 
to  deal  with  each  one  after  his  needs."  This  hygienic 
freedom  will  restore  and  give  such  nice  balance  to 
the  nerves  that  every  one  will  be  at  his  best.  At  the 
meal  (lunch  or  dinner),  all  things  will  go  trip- 
pingly because  of  this  sagacious  and  humane 
reform. 

Many  of  the  social  troubles  which  we  magnify  are 
troubles,  according  to  him,  because  as  individuals 
we  insist  upon  interpreting  them  solely  by  our  tem- 
poral personal  convenience.  The  employer  com- 
plains of  high  wages  and  shortened  hours,  yet  these 
are  the  very  proofs  of  the  industrial  supremacy 
which  these  critics  grant  us.  The  mistress  groans 
because  the  domestic  is  quick  to  leave ;  but  that  she 
can  leave,  sure  always  of  another  place  and,  it  may 
be,  a  higher  wage,  is  precisely  what  marks  the 
economic  advantage  of  the  country.  That  com- 
munity leads  which  gives  opportunity  to  the  largest 
number  of  its  population.  That  opportunity  is 
here  open  to  those  classes  which  are  elsewhere 


184  AS  OTHERS   SEE  US 

narrowly  held  by  custom,  is  the  very  sign  of  that 
progress  which  includes  the  nation  as  a  whole. 

It  is,  I  think,  de  Rousier  who  expresses  the 
humorous  surprise  that  our  democracy  should  have 
become  the  happy  hunting-ground  of  the  European 
nobility.  As  their  rents  fall  and  their  castles  decay ; 
as  the  external  symbols  of  class  distinction  become 
too  costly  to  maintain,  what  happier  resource  have 
these  titled  pets  than  to  save  themselves  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  well-dowered  American  girl  ?  "  Is  your 
democracy,"  asked  one  visitor,  "to  be  the  chief 
protector  and  preserver  of  these  man-made  inequali- 
ties in  Europe?" 

It  is  full  of  interest  to  hear  a  Catholic  scholar 
speculate  with  great  open-mindedness  upon  the 
differences  in  the  French  and  American  ideals  of 
the  young  woman's  education.  After  many  visits 
to  the  American  schools  he  thus  states  his  case :  — 

"The  difference  is  revolutionary.  We  in  France  assume 
with  our  young  women  that  they  are  to  marry  and  live  the 
family  life.  All  our  conceptions  of  the  girl's  training  are  con- 
sciously adjusted  to  this  thought.  The  American  ideal  seems, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  assume  that  the  girl  is  to  have  a  life  of 
her  own;  that  she  is  to  be  economically  independent  and 
make  her  way,  marriage  or  no  marriage." 

If  the  family  were  to  suffer  from  this,  he  sees  in 
that  fact  the  condemnation  of  this  education  in  the 
United  States.  He  is  not  convinced  that  this  evil 
is  to  be  feared,  because  of  the  indications  that  this 
very  economic  independence,  with  its  enlarged 


OUR   FRENCH  VISITORS  185 

freedom,  may  result  in  a  sexual  selection  of  a  type 
that  will  secure  better  offspring  and  even  a  happier 
marriage.  "The  girl  that  is  independent  enough  to 
refuse  the  man  who  can  only  offer  economic  support 
may  later  have  her  reward  in  the  husband  that  nature 
means  for  her."  This  is  like  Jules  Huret's  discovery 
that  the  larger  life  opened  to  the  American  woman 
has  made  her  so  much  nearer  an  intellectual  mate  of 
her  husband  that  the  offspring  and  society  at  large 
reap  the  advantage.  The  net  energy  and  initiative 
of  the  country  seem  to  him  largely  accounted  for 
by  this  wider  field  of  woman's  activity. 

Another  reflection  on  our  education,  especially  in 
the  earlier  grades,  is  that  the  imagination,  the  sense 
of  mystery  and  of  reverence,  suffer  much  from  our 
too  positive  methods.  "Information  and  the  fact" 
are  thought  to  hold  such  sway  in  our  schools  that 
the  more  delicate  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  are 
hardened  in  the  process.  One  of  these  writers l 
has  a  very  penetrating  passage  upon  this  point. 
He  says  our  education  allows  far  too  little  for  the 
unconscious  resources  in  the  young.  He  is  sorry 
to  find  in  the  youth  at  school  so  little  of  the  naive, 
so  little  timidity,  deference,  and  even  awkwardness. 
He  would  see  more  capacity  to  blush,  more  "  credu- 
lous simplicity"  and  less  aggressive,  conscious  inten- 
sity. He  gives  this  as  one  reason  why  many  of  our 
finest  men  of  poetic  and  unworldly  nature  have  such 

1  Paul  Bourget,  "  Outre  Mer,"  Vol.  II,  p.  135. 


1 86  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

slight  influence  in  the  nation ;  —  because  "  cette  vie 
est  trop  voluntaire,  trop  consciente,  trop  intensive." 

It  is  this  brilliant  writer  who  turns  many  a  neat 
phrase  against  us  because  of  our  lack  of  "la  mesure." 
Balance,  perspective,  proportion  in  our  thinking  and 
in  that  which  thought  expresses,  he  finds  deplorably 
lacking  in  our  inner  and  outer  life.  This  evil  is  so 
inherent  that  nothing  escapes  it.  Our  architecture 
and  theatre  have  as  little  harmony  as  our  inner 
estimates  of  the  spiritual  values  of  life.  We  have 
a  craze  to  count  in  vast  numbers ;  cannot,  he  says, 
even  show  our  new  houses  to  strangers  without 
insisting  that  they  look  into  every  room,  toilet  and 
linen  closets  included.  The  bulk  of  the  Sunday 
papers  is  a  fatal  sign  of  this  disease  of  "too  much- 
ness." Reckless  as  to  quality,  the  editor  reckons 
well  on  his  public  by  supplying  a  huge  and  promis- 
cuous mass  of  print  and  pictures.  Our  houses  are 
stuffed  too  full  of  ornament,  too  much  is  upon  walls 
and  tables.  Roses,  like  the  American  Beauty, 
swaggering  on  stems  four  feet  long,  and  the  modest 
violet  packed  into  bouquets  that  would  fill  the  wash 
bowl ;  the  length  of  the  dinner,  the  amount  of  food 
and  the  waste  connected  with  it;  the  height  of  the 
skyscraper;  the  "barbarous  over-ornamenting  of 
the  Pullman  car"  and  the  last  new  hotel;  the  reck- 
less speeding  of  specially  advertised  trains,  are  one 
and  all  unpleasant  hints  to  this  philosophic  critic 
of  our  lack  of  "la  mesure."  We  are  the  most 
hospitable  of  people,  yet  cannot  resist  overdoing  it 


OUR   FRENCH   VISITORS  187 

for  those  whom  we  specially  care  to  entertain,  and 
thus  over  all  is  this  trail  of  the  serpent  —  exaggera- 
tion. 

We  cannot  deny  this  altogether,  but  it  is  fair  to 
reply  that  the  standard  which  he  sets  us  —  harmony 
and  proportion  for  the  inner  and  the  outer  life  — 
is  the  highest  and  most  difficult  that  ever  was  or 
can  be  applied  to  a  race.  We  have  been  told  often 
enough  that  only  the  Greeks  at  their  highest  mo- 
ment ever  greatly  approached  its  realization.  Before 
this  supreme  test,  no  nation  would  go  without 
whipping.  The  baby  act,  however,  we  will  not  play. 
The  fault,  beyond  doubt,  lies  against  us.  Exaggera- 
tion and  lack  of  "measure9'  are  like  a  taint  in  the 
blood  of  our  civilization. 

Still,  these  fastidious  connoisseurs  leave  us  one 
crumb  of  comfort.  As  we  saw  a  change  and  soften- 
ing of  tone  in  the  English  criticism,  so  in  the  French. 
Their  most  persuasive  and  confident  strictures 
against  us  naturally  concerned  the  realm  of  art. 
There  is  no  relenting  about  our  theatre.  For  our 
stage,  their  shafts  still  bear  the  poisoned  tip.  But 
architecture,  painting,  sculpture,  literature,  win 
most  gracious  praises  from  recent  French  guests.1 
Paul  Adam,2  in  a  recent  volume  of  much  charm,  is 
unhesitating  in  his  admiration  for  "the  emerging 

1  M.  Alfred  D'Almbert,  a  half  century  ago,  in  his  "Flanerie 
Parisienne,"  thinks  it  very  clever  to  announce  a  chapter  on  the 
Beaux  Arts  en  Amerique.     As  you  turn  the  leaf  you  come  upon 
a  blank  unprinted  space. 

2  "Vues  d' Amerique,"  Paris,  1906. 


1 88  AS  OTHERS   SEE  US 

best"  in  these  arts.  Sargent  has  "incontestable  mas- 
tery." We  have  "excellent  art  instruction."  John 
La  Farge  is  among  the  really  great,  and  "la  grande 
simplicite"  of  Saint  Gaudens'  figures  is  full  of 
power  and  genius.  In  much  of  our  sculpture  there 
is  "excellent  technique."  He  says  we  have  become 
the  great  art  buyers  of  the  world  and  that  our  rich 
men  use  their  dollars  far  better  than  the  rich  men  of 
France.  He  roundly  says  to  the  Latin  people  that 
they  should  be  made  to  understand  that  the  spirit  of 
art  "has  definitely  penetrated  the  soul  of  the  Yan- 
kees." "Europe  must  look  out  if  she  would  keep 
her  supremacy  in  art."  It  is  not  less  complimentary 
that  he  interprets  much  of  our  higher  life  through  the 
philosophy  of  William  James.  Here,  too,  is  a  great 
artist  whose  thought  fascinates  him  like  the  grand 
lines  of  the  Lincoln  statue. 

In  the  genial  book  of  the  Catholic  Professor, 
Abbe*  Klein,1  we  have  an  abandonment  of  appre- 
ciation for  the  spiritual  tolerance  which  seems  to 
that  writer  a  sure  solvent  for  many  gritty  obstacles, 
not  alone  on  our  shores,  but  for  the  future  of  a  much 

1  "Au  Pays  de  la  Vie  Intense."  Though  we  say  these  things 
ourselves,  it  is  more  quickening  to  hear  a  large-minded  French 
Catholic  thinking  aloud  about  the  niggardly  uses  to  which  the  great 
average  of  Protestant  churches  are  put.  That  such  a  vast  equip- 
ment throughout  the  land  should  have  a  leisurely  Sunday  morning 
opening  with  a  possible  prayer-meeting  in  the  week,  and  then  be 
locked  tight  as  in  fear  of  thieves!  He  finds  multitudes  of  these 
costly  structures  used  hardly  more  than  half  the  hours  of  a  single 
day  during  the  entire  week. 


OUR    FRENCH    VISITORS  189 

larger  world  in  which  the  races  must  more  and  more 
live  as  in  one  common  country. 

There  are  few  exceptions  to  the  blank  bewilder- 
ment of  the  abler  French  reporters,  that  the  negro 
should  excite  the  excess  of  feeling  which  they  find 
in  the  North  and  South  alike.  This  surprise  is  not 
in  the  least  confined  to  those  who  have  had  no  con- 
tact with  the  African  and  can  therefore  be  said  to 
know  nothing  about  him.  It  is  the  same  astonish- 
ment that  the  present  Governor- General  of  Jamaica 
expresses.  He  has  had  long  and  intimate  relations 
with  negroes  in  various  administrative  capacities. 
That  we  should  so  incessantly  talk  about  it ;  that  we 
should  so  force  the  issue  into  the  fierce  light  of 
controversy  and  debate;  that  reticence  and  self- 
control  should  be  so  rare,  are  what  appear  to  him 
among  the  least  excusable  causes  of  the  trouble. 
We  act,  he  says,  as  if  we  were  set  upon  creating  two 
or  three  times  as  many  difficulties  as  there  are. 

This  is  the  tone  of  the  most  intelligent  French 
observers.  "If  it  is  an  uneasy  ghost,"  asks  one, 
"why  can  the  Americans  give  it  no  rest?  Why 
must  they  always  assume  that  the  hair  by  which  the 
sword  hangs  is  so  soon  to  snap  ?  Why  do  they  shout 
so  loudly  that  it  must  snap?"  He  is  told  by  many 
best  people  in  the  South,  that  if  the  tongue  of  the 
politician  should  be  struck  by  temporary  paralysis 
whenever  he  appeals  to  this  race  feeling,  the  greatest 
obstacle  to  race  improvement  would  be  removed. 

These  sins  appear  to  him,  however,  slight  as  com- 


AS  OTHERS   SEE  US 

pared  to  the  "magnificent  abandon"  with  which 
North  and  South  alike  are  giving  themselves  to  the 
education  of  the  colored  race.  And  thus  we  pass 
from  the  unchecked  elation  of  Brissot  at  the  closing 
of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the  more  discriminating 
cordiality  of  these  last  writers  who  find  it  worth  while 
to  see  us  at  our  best  rather  than  at  our  worst. 


CHAPTER  XI 

DEMOCRACY  AND  MANNERS 

THAT  democracy  is  to  deprive  social  relations  of  all 
delicacy  and  charm,  is  either  taken  for  granted  by 
many  of  the  older  critics,  or  they  attempt  to  prove 
it  by  elaborate  illustrations.  "  Democracy  every- 
where," says  one,  "has  no  soft  words,  no  suppleness 
of  forms ;  it  has  little  address,  little  of  management ; 
it  is  apt  to  confound  moderation  with  weakness, 
violence  with  heroism."  As  a  democracy  must  be 
built  up  through  trade  and  commerce  in  which  the 
entire  people  takes  part,  no  class  remains  to  teach 
manners  to  the  busy  masses.  This  filled  many  of 
our  observers  with  anxiety.  If  all  must  earn  their 
own  livelihood,  how  could  they  ever  attain  the  ease 
and  refinement  of  good  behavior? 

That  those  who  produce  the  wealth  upon  which 
all  must  live  could  ever  learn  the  gentilities  in  and 
through  their  work  was  not  to  be  thought  of.  Enough 
of  this  has  nevertheless  come  to  pass  that  we  see 
something  of  these  rare  values  slowly  emerging  from 
the  very  jaws  of  the  industrial  monster.  We  have 
begun  to  see  that  manners  are  an  excellent  business 
asset.  As  business  has  lost  its  isolated  and  individual 
character;  as  it  has  come  more  and  more  to  depend 

191 


IQ2  AS  OTHERS   SEE  US 

upon  associated  and  corporate  forms;  in  a  word, 
as  it  becomes  socialized,  manners  in  the  larger  sense 
rise  in  value.  To  manage  large  bodies  of  men  has 
come  to  require  the  kind  of  knowledge  that  includes 
manners  of  some  sort.  As  for  the  general  public 
and  the  greater  corporations  that  depend  upon  its 
good-will,  manners  are  coming  to  rank  with  ability. 
We  have  now  to  supplement  the  familiar  formula 
"land,  labor,  and  ability"  by  land,  labor,  ability 
and  manners. 

It  was  this  larger  use  of  the  word  that  President 
Hadley  had  in  mind  when  he  said,  "A  large  part  of 
the  railroad  difficulties  could  be  settled  simply  by 
good  manners."  That  noble  citizen,  W.  J.  Baldwin, 
Jr.,  was  also  thinking  of  railroad  problems  when  he 
said,  "We  shall  be  in  hot  water  until  we  train  up  a 
set  of  men  who  know  how  to  behave  to  each  other 
and  to  the  public."  It  has  long  been  evident  that 
a  large  part  of  our  labor  troubles  spring  from  a  lack 
of  manners  if  the  word  is  used  in  its  larger  sense. 
The  best  work  brought  about  by  arbitration  has 
been  through  devices  which  enable  the  good  manners 
of  those  most  concerned  to  get  effective  expression. 
An  American  business  man  many  years  in  Mexico 
gave  this  bit  of  his  own  history :  — 

"I  was  for  months  checked  in  my  plans  because  I  knew 
nothing  of  Mexican  manners.  My  letters,  my  calls,  my  busi- 
ness propositions  all  seemed  to  freeze  up  the  men  with  whom 
I  wished  to  do  business.  A  friendly  Mexican  to  whom  I 
appealed  for  help  told  me  I  was  too  abrupt.  'They  don't 


DEMOCRACY   AND   MANNERS  193 

understand  you  any  better  than  you  understand  them.  You 
must  make  a  formal  call  and  a  leisurely  one,  before  you  say 
a  word  about  your  business  proposition.  You  are  beginning 
to  use  the  telephone,  but  you  offend  people  by  not  spending  a 
minute  first  in  careful  inquiries  as  to  health,  etc.'  Then  he 
showed  me  all  the  flourishes  that  must  adorn  my  letters,  and 
stowly,  and  with  great  loss  of  time,  I  got  on  to  a  perfectly 
friendly  footing  with  my  Mexicans." 

This  common  ignorance  of  customs  and  traditions 
among  another  people  accounts  for  a  part  at  least  of 
this  sad  tangle  over  the  question  of  manners.  A 
certain  rare  and  occasional  type  of  visitor  brings  the 
gift ;  —  is  it  knowledge,  imagination,  sympathy,  or 
a  unifying  of  all  these  ?  —  a  gift  at  any  rate  which 
carries  its  happy  possessor  through  every  vexation 
of  the  journey,  apparently  without  discerning  that 
anybody  has  bad  manners. 

Almost  exactly  one  hundred  years  ago  John  Brad- 
bury, F.L.S.,  travelled  one  thousand  miles  in  the 
United  States.  In  his  own  words,  he  "never  met 
with  the  least  incivility  or  affront."  We  see  the 
reason  for  this  in  a  warning  he  gives  to  travellers 
from  Europe.  They  must  first  understand  the 
character  of  the  society  to  which  they  come,  especially 
if  they  have  been  in  the  habit  of  treating  servants 
haughtily.  "Let  no  one  (in  the  United  States) 
indulge  himself  in  abusing  the  waiter  or  hostler  at 
the  inn,"  for  these  feel  that  they  are  citizens  and  are 
performing  useful  work.1  De  Tocqueville  is,  ex- 
cept now  and  then,  just  as  philosophical.  Even 

1  "Travels  in  1809,  10,  and  n,"  Liverpool,  1817,  p.  355. 
o 


AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 


very    ungracious   differences    in    behavior    interest 
him:  — 

"There  are  many  little  attentions  which  an  American  does 
not  care  about  ;  he  thinks  they  are  not  due  him,  or  he  presumes 
that  they  are  not  known  to  be  due  ;  he  therefore  either  does  not 
perceive  a  rudeness,  or  he  forgives  it  ;  his  manners  become  less 
courteous,  and  his  character  more  plain  and  masculine."  * 

With  the  large  majority  of  these  early  travellers, 
our  manners  find  no  favor.  Isaac  Weld  gives  about 
the  average  acidity  to  his  summary,  "  Civility  cannot 
be  purchased  from  them  on  any  terms;  they  seem 
to  think  that  it  is  incompatible  with  freedom."  3 
Even  the  great  ones  discipline  us,  especially  when 
we  are  caught  out  of  our  own  country.  In  Lock- 
hart's  "Life  of  Scott,"  we  find  the  great  story-teller 
thus  commenting  on  the  Americans  that  sought 
him  out,  "They  are  as  yet  rude  in  their  ideas  of 
social  intercourse,  and  totally  ignorant,  speaking 
generally,  of  all  the  art  of  good  breeding,  which 
consists  chiefly  in  a  postponement  of  one's  own  petty 
wishes  or  comforts  to  those  of  others.  By  rude 
questions  and  observations,  an  absolute  disrespect 
to  other  people's  feelings,  and  a  ready  indulgence  of 
their  own,  they  make  one  feverish  in  their  company, 
though  perhaps  you  may  be  ashamed  to  confess." 
This  is  mildly  spoken  compared  to  Tennyson's 
outburst  against  the  steady  stream  of  Americans 
that  tried  year  after  year  to  waylay  him  in  and  about 

1  "Democracy  in  America,"  Vol.  II,  p.  209. 
1  "Travels,"  p.  37. 


\ 

•j- 


HARRIET  MARTINEAU 
Author  of  "  Society  in  America  " 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MANNERS         195 

his  home  by  the  sea.  Another  benignant  English- 
man says  the  first  thing  an  American  does,  when  he 
arrives  at  a  London  hotel,  is  to  demonstrate  his 
inferiority  to  the  waiters.  He  is  so  ignorant  of  the 
fine  art  of  tipping,  that  he  gives  a  shilling  where  he 
should  give  a  penny,  and  to  the  man  who  should 
get  twopenny  he  donates  two  shillings.  "The 
consequence  is  that  he  is  always  in  difficulties." 
The  growing  insolence  of  English  waiters  he  attrib- 
utes wholly  to  the  low-bred  familiarity  of  the  Ameri- 
can tourists!  This  Londoner  says  it  is  a  common 
sight  to  see  the  entire  business  of  a  restaurant  cease 
while  the  man  from  Indiana  loudly  disputes  the 
extra  price  charged  for  bread,  because  "out  in 
Indiana  they  do  not  have  such  charges.  Everybody 
can  have  all  the  bread  he  wants.  It's  thrown  in." 

"Why,"  asks  the  English  journalist,  "is  the  Ameri- 
can so  well  behaved  at  home,  but  such  a  consuming 
terror  in  Europe?"  He  was  given  the  well-worn 
answer.  "  The  noisy  or  conspicuously  silly  American 
fixes  attention  upon  himself.  You  English  do  not 
notice  the  far  greater  number  of  quiet  and  decent 
people  for  the  very  reason  that  they  are  well  be- 
haved." The  American  then  asked,  "Why  can't 
you  understand  that  some  millions  of  people  in  the 
United  States  have  the  travelling-  habit;  that  thou- 
sands of  them,  from  the  humblest  origin,  go  to  Europe 
as  soon  as  they  get  money  enough.  In  no  country 
in  the  world  does  this  class  sacrifice  to  see  the  world, 
often  with  their  families,  as  do  Americans.  That 


196  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

among  these,  large  numbers  should  make  themselves 
officious  and  disagreeable  is  inevitable."  This  is 
true,  but  it  is  also  inevitable  that  a  very  small  minor- 
ity of  loud  and  objectionable  folk,  from  any  country, 
should  set  a  common  stamp  on  the  entire  people. 
Again  and  again,  we  see  in  our  critics  that  they 
brought  with  them  the  idea  of  our  manners  from 
what  they  had  already  observed  of  American  be- 
havior in  Europe. 

We  have  good  evidence  that  this  offensive  chip- 
on-the-shoulder  attitude  has  disappeared  from  some 
classes  of  Americans.  But  for  our  continued  sham- 
ing, a  noisy  and  undisciplined  contingent  carries 
on  the  work  of  discrediting  our  country.  On  ship, 
in  miscellaneous  hotels  and  pensions  in  Europe,  this 
plague  still  rages.  A  veteran  conductor  of  Ameri- 
cans through  Europe  says,  "  I  have  my  chief  trouble 
with  this  infernal  lugging  of  America  along  with 
them.  I  practically  never  get  a  party  without  some 
few  who  stir  up  bad  blood  by  loud  talk  about  'the 
way  we  do  things  in  the  United  States,'  and  the 
women  are  as  bad  as  the  men.  The  Italians  and 
Swiss  are  good-natured  about  it ;  the  English  despise 
it,  and  if  they  can,  avoid  us  altogether;  the  French 
shrug  their  shoulders  and  say, '  What  can  you  expect  ? 
they  are  Americans.'"  He  adds,  "I  have  often  seen 
both  French  and  English,  when  inquiring  for  rooms 
at  pensions  or  small  hotels,  turn  away  upon  learning 
that  Americans  were  there." 

An  American  who  had  to  spend  some  years  in 


DEMOCRACY   AND   MANNERS  197 

Italy  admits  that  he  changed  his  pension  three  times 
because  he  couldn't  stand  "so  many  kinds  of  brag- 
ging about  his  country.  Four  out  of  five  of  us  can 
hold  our  own  in  decent  behavior  with  other  national- 
ities, but  there  is  always  that  awful  fifth  to  make 
mischief."  In  one  pension  from  which  he  felt  him- 
self driven  he  says,  a  mother  came  with  her  three 
grown  daughters.  On  their  first  entrance  into  the 
parlor  in  which  several  persons  were  reading  or 
writing,  one  of  the  daughters  said,  as  if  no  one  were 
in  the  room,  "  Did  you  ever  see  such  absurd  ways  of 
heating  a  house?  It's  almost  as  bad  as  those  stuffy 
English  grates.  Why,  in  America — "  "I  didn't 
stop  for  the  rest  of  the  sentence,  I  hurried  out  to  find 
some  place  where  I  should  be  free  from  this  most 
intolerable  way  of  making  ourselves  disagreeable  on 
our  travels." 

Our  task  is,  however,  with  that  larger  general 
public  of  which  our  critics  are  mostly  writing.  Espe- 
cially in  the  first  half  of  the  century  they  rarely 
attempt  any  discrimination  among  different  kinds 
of  Americans.  A  French  lecturer  says,  "He  (the 
American)  would  be  afraid  of  lowering  himself  by 
being  polite.  In  his  eyes  politeness  is  a  form  of 
servility,  and  he  imagines  that,  by  being  rude  to 
well-bred  people,  he  puts  himself  on  a  footing  with 
them,  and  carries  out  the  greatest  principle  of  democ- 
racy, equality."  1  For  more  than  half  a  century,  we 

1  "  Jonathan  and  His  Continent,"  p.  278. 

Hamerton   speaks  of   certain   classes   among   the   Scots  who 


198  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

get  almost  unbroken  chastisement,  especially  from 
the  English.  The  French  so  far  champion  us  as 
to  say  that,  of  all  people,  the  English  have  the 
least  qualification  as  instructors  or  censors  of  man- 
ners. But  as  this  French  view  may  arise  from 
envy  of  the  English,  we  will  not  take  advantage 
of  it. 

It  is,  nevertheless,  very  vital  to  know  as  much  as 
possible  about  the  temper  and  idiosyncrasies  of  the 
critic.  I  have  seen  a  good  many  Germans  in  that 
country  (especially  men  classically  trained)  who  had 
come  to  the  United  States,  but  for  some  reason  failed 
to  win  their  way.  They  returned  embittered  to  the 
Fatherland.  Henceforth  it  was  a  vocation  to  abuse 
American  character  and  manners.  But  the  root  of 
this  abuse  was  in  their  own  remembered  disappoint- 
ment. If  we  add  to  causes  like  these,  all  sorts  of 
personal  bias,  misadventure  and  injured  vanities, 
we  shall  account  for  a  good  deal  of  the  harsher 
comment  on  our  manners. 

There  is  no  better  illustration  than  Mrs.  Trollope, 
who  is  selected  because  our  manners  were  her  special 
theme.  It  was  these  which  gave  the  title  to  her  book. 
Wherever  she  journeys,  her  eye  seeks  evidence  of 
our  ill  breeding.  She  was  standing  by  General 
Jackson  when  a  good  American  thus  accosted 
him:  — 

show  "a  sort  of  repugnance  to  polish  of  manner,  as  if  it  were  an 
unmanly  dandyism,  a  feeling  that  answers  to  a  plain  man's  dis- 
like of  jewellery  and  fine  clothes." 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MANNERS         199 

"'General  Jackson,  I  guess?' 

"The  General  bowed  assent. 

"'Why,  they  told  me  you  was  dead.' 

"'No!  Providence  has  hitherto  preserved  my  life.' 

'"And  is  your  wife  alive,  too?' 

"The  General,  apparently  much  hurt,  signified  the  con- 
trary, upon  which  the  courtier  concluded  his  harangue  by 
saying,  'Ay,  I  thought  it  was  one  or  the  t'other  of  ye.'"  l 

She  says,  "The  total  and  universal  want  of  man- 
ners, both  in  males  and  females,  is  so  remarkable 
that  I  was  constantly  endeavoring  to  account  for 
it."  2  She  is  telling  the  truth  for  the  most  part,  but 
she  needs  one  correction.  We  are  quite  certain 
that  her  own  peculiarities  were  so  unyieldingly 
different  from  those  among  whom  she  lived,  as  to 
be  a  constant  irritant.  She  was  sturdily  usot"  in 
her  English  ways;  was  very  brusque  and  could  not 
adapt  herself  to  the  life  about  her.  She  wishes 
to  hire  a  domestic  "by  the  year,"  as  she  did  in  Eng- 
land. She  thinks  it  very  absurd  to  hire  by  the  month. 
The  custom  should  be  corrected ;  but  she  gets  this 
response  from  the  astonished  maiden :  — 

"Oh  Gimini!"  exclaimed  the  damsel,  with  a  loud  laugh, 
"you  be  a  downright  Englisher,  sure  enough.  I  should  like 
to  see  a  young  lady  engage  by  the  year  in  America !  I  hope  I 
shall  get  a  husband  before  many  months,  or  I  expect  I  shall 
be  an  outright  old  maid,  for  I  be  most  seventeen  already." 

That  the  ways  of  men  were  rough  and  uncouth 
among  the  average  folk  with  whom  she  had  to  do 
was  as  natural,  at  that  time,  as  that  pigs  should  run 

1  Page  20 1.  z  Page  64. 


200  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

in  the  streets,  roads  should  be  bad,  houses  built 
"like  shells,"  and  that  there  should  be  "a  deplorable 
lack  of  sidewalks."  We  have  to  take  her  own 
conduct  into  account  because  manners  are  not  alone 
an  affair  of  the  individual,  they  are  a  social  relation. 
When  Captain  Marryat,  who  follows  Mrs.  Trollope, 
finds  a  group  of  Americans,  jolly  and  companionable, 
it  throws  even  more  light  on  him  than  on  the  Ameri- 
cans. It  is  instant  proof  that  the  jovial  author  of 
"Peter  Simple"  was  himself  a  lover  of  good  fellow- 
ship; that  he  could  "mix"  with  any  company. 
This  is  a  human  approach  that  creates  its  own 
response. 
Alexander  Mackay,  a  few  years  later,  says :  — 

"An  American  can  be  as  reserved  as  anybody  else,  when  he 
comes  in  contact  with  one  he  does  not  understand,  or  who  will 
not  understand  him  —  and  this  is  the  reason  why  so  many 
travellers  in  America,  who  forget  to  leave  their  European  no- 
tions of  exclusiveness  at  home,  and  traverse  the  republic 
wrapped  in  the  cloak  of  European  formalism,  find  the  Ameri- 
cans so  cold  in  their  demeanor,  and  erroneously  regard  their 
particular  conduct  to  themselves  as  the  result  of  a  general 
moodiness  and  reserve."  * 

This  explains  Mackay's  temperamental  equip- 
ment as  a  traveller.  He  will  not  insist  upon  hiring 
a  domestic  by  the  year,  if  that  is  not  the  custom. 
He  will  not  insist  upon  the  same  2  vocal  intonation 
or  openly  rejoice,  as  one  of  his  friends  did,  that  our 
Hall  of  Representatives  at  Washington  was  perfect 

1  Page  126. 

1  "The  Western  World,"  1846,  p.  126.     See  also  p.  283. 


DEMOCRACY    AND   MANNERS  2OI 

because  you  couldn't  hear  a  word  that  was  spoken  in 
it.  One  Frenchman  never  sees  a  public  official  that 
was  not  coarse  and  brutal  in  his  manners.  Without 
defending  all  our  officials,  we  yet  know  that  about 
this  same  Frenchman  there  were  peculiarities  which, 
if  we  knew  them,  would  qualify  his  sweeping  judg- 
ment. 

De  Tocqueville,  for  example,  shows  us  as  in  a 
mirror,  in  this  little  paragraph,  what  kind  of  a 
"mixer"  he  was:  "A  public  officer  in  the  United 
States  is  uniformly  simple  in  his  manners,  accessible 
to  all  the  world,  attentive  to  all  requests,  and  obliging 
in  his  replies."  l 

Sir  James  Caird  was  sent  to  this  country  by  the 
English  Government  to  report  on  the  feeling  of  our 
people  after  the  affair  of  the  Alabama.  He  told  me 
that  on  one  of  our  trains  he  thought  he  had  lost  some 
luggage.  He  sent  for  the  conductor,  saying  to  him 
rather  gruffly  that  his  luggage  must  be  looked  up. 
"I  assumed,"  said  Sir  James,  "that  your  conductors 
were  like  the  'guards'  on  an  English  train.  I  at 
once  found  out  my  error.  The  tall  Yankee  took 
out  his  glasses  and  looked  down  at  me  with  great  de- 
liberation, saying  finally, '  Who  in are  you  ? '  I 

lost  my  temper,  saying  to  him  that  I  was  a  '  member 
of  Parliament,  commissioned  by  my  government,' 
etc.,  etc.  To  all  of  which  the  tall  Yankee  listened 
grimly  till  I  had  finished.  He  then  said,  as  if 
examining  a  specimen,  'Well  —  I'll  be ,  if  you 

J  "Democracy  in  America,"  Vol.  I,  p.  263. 


202  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

don't  look  just  as  I  expected  a  member  of  Parliament 
to  look.  Good  day.'  He  returned  in  a  moment 
and  said,  'If  you  go  and  ask  the  baggagemaster, 
perhaps  he'll  look  after  your  trunk.'"  Sir  James 
added  that  he  had  never  known  before  what  degree 
of  rage  he  was  capable  of.  After  some  days  he 
learned  that  the  conductor  was  rather  like  the  cap- 
tain of  a  steamer  and  in  no  way  like  the  guard  of 
an  English  train.  "I  finally  saw  that  I  had  made  a 
fool  of  myself  and  after  that  never  had  the  slightest 
trouble."  This  kindly  English  gentleman  could, 
of  course,  have  had  that  same  circus  every  day  of 
his  stay  in  the  United  States,  if  he  had  not  dropped 
that  tone  and  air.  His  own  misreckomng  created 
the  situation,  just  as  thousands  of  Americans  in 
Europe  create  all  sorts  of  awkwardnesses  and  ill- 
feeling  because  in  some  moment  of  misunderstand- 
ing they  have  no  key  to  the  situation.  They  are  in 
unwonted  conditions  where  they  have  not  learned 
the  human  approach. 

As  jovial  a  nature  as  Dickens  certainly  had  not 
learned  it  on  his  first  journey  to  this  country.  He 
had  a  great  weakness  for  playing  the  dandy  in  his 
dress.  He  was  much  bejewelled  and  we  have  only 
to  picture  him,  with  his  buttonhole  bouquet,  walking 
about  in  a  town  of  the  Mississippi  valley  in  1842. 
Every  ultra  effect  of  his  person  was  bound  to  create 
among  those  rustics  all  manner  of  "impertinent 
curiosities."  The  gods  could  not  have  protected 
him.  When,  on  his  second  trip,  he  said  nothing 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MANNERS         203 

would  induce  him  to  write  another  book,  we  see 
that  he  had  learned  something.  Even  so  little  a 
thing  as  the  single  eye-glass  of  Sir  Charles  Lyell 
explains  some  of  the  irreverent  remarks  that  he  did 
not  like  in  that  Western  world. 

Difficult  as  it  is,  there  must  be  some  understanding 
as  to  what  is  meant  by  manners.  Renan  says  that 
no  fact  weighs  so  much  in  our  human  relations  as 
manner.  He  is  not  asserting  that  manners  are  the 
highest  or  best  in  character,  but  that  they  practically 
count  for  more  than  other  gifts  among  men.  This 
has  no  more  emphasis  than  in  Emerson,  who  says 
that  "the  creation  of  the  gentleman"  is  the  most 
conspicuous  fact  in  modern  history.  "Chivalry 
is  that,  and  loyalty  is  that,  and,  in  English  literature, 
half  the  drama  and  all  the  novels  from  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  paint  this  figure."  As 
we  face  the  many  charges  that  American  manners 
are  bad,  what  standard  are  we  to  have  in  mind? 
Has  any  nation  as  a  whole  good  manners?  We 
hear  this  said  of  some  Eastern  peoples,  but  in  our 
Western  world,  are  German  or  French  or  English 
manners  good  as  totals  of  behavior?  Or  must  we 
deal  with  a  selected  class  or  classes  in  each  nation? 
We  should  find  in  every  class  in  all  of  those  countries 
gracious  and  most  ungracious  manners.  In  each 
community  we  should  have  to  do  with  individuals. 
It  is  not  unlikely  that  many  more  persons  deserving 
the  name  of  gentleman  or  lady,  would  be  found  in 
one  nation  than  in  another.  But  the  question  in 


204  AS  OTHERS   SEE   US 

Europe  as  well  as  in  the  United  States  will  be  one  of 
ratios.  The  general  statement  that  American  man- 
ners are  bad  is  like  saying,  "the  American  is  fat  or 
temperate,  or  easily  embarrassed."  I  heard  an 
Englishman  in  London,  who  did  not  like  us,  say  that 
he  never  failed  to  spot  an  American,  because  he  had 
"a  wolf's  face."  I  saw  what  he  meant,  but  he  was 
depicting  only  a  portion  of  his  enemies.  That 
Europeans  knocking  about  among  our  loosely  settled 
communities,  as  did  Fearon,  the  two  Halls,  and 
scores  of  others,  should  be  concerned  about  our  lack 
of  manners,  is  like  their  solicitude  over  our  want 
of  cathedrals,  castles,  and  good  pictures.  The  slow 
reaching  out  of  our  people  toward  the  West  with 
all  the  burdens  and  hardships  incident  to  pioneer 
life,  was  no  school  for  outward  graces.  Our  popular 
conception  of  liberty  and  equality  unquestionably 
added  its  touch  of  swagger  to  much  of  our 
behavior.  The  hat-in-hand  deference  observable 
among  common  folk  in  many  parts  of  Europe  could 
not  thrive  in  our  atmosphere.  That  deference  was 
made  in  older  countries  by  all  sorts  of  forced  sub- 
serviency. It  is  sweet  to  those  who  receive  it,  and 
we  often  hear  among  us  a  toadying  valuation  set 
upon  the  obsequious  and  bated  homage  of  foreign 
servants.  This  is  called  good  manners.  It  is 
said,  they  "know  their  places."  But  we  cannot 
continue  to  have  those  masks,  and  at  the  same  time 
have  the  best  social  manners. 
As  most  of  the  early  attacks  on  our  ill-bred  ways 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MANNERS         205 

ascribe  them  to  democracy  and  equality,  this  charge 
especially  has  to  be  met.  There  is  happily  illustrious 
authority  to  which  we  may  appeal.  As  great  a  man 
as  Goethe  declared  that  really  good  manners  could 
only  come  with  equality;  not  an  inane  literal 
equality,  but  an  equality  of  native  and  achieved 
power;  a  social  ranking  according  to  social  service, 
without  any  artificial  aid  of  class  flunkeyism.  Many 
of  the  earliest  critics  insist  that  our  theories  of  equality 
spoil  manners.  Our  imperfections  were  very  real,  but 
they  were  not  owing  to  any  theory  of  equality,  unless 
blatant  exceptions  here  and  there  are  to  decide.  We 
can  appeal  to  the  very  highest  authorities  for  this. 
In  respect  to  our  manner,  James  Bryce  says, 
"Americans  have  gained  more  than  they  have  lost  by 
equality."  l  Then  follows  this  admirable  passage :  — 

"I  do  not  think  that  the  upper  class  loses  in  grace,  I  am 
sure  that  the  humbler  class  gains  in  independence.  The  man- 
ners of  the  'best  people'  are  exactly  those  of  England,  with  a 
thought  more  of  consideration  towards  inferiors  and  of  frank- 
ness towards  equals.  Among  the  masses  there  is,  generally 
speaking,  as  much  real  courtesy  and  good  nature  as  anywhere 
else  in  the  world.  There  is  less  outward  politeness  than  in 
some  parts  of  Europe,  Portugal,  for  instance,  or  Tuscany,  or 
Sweden.  There  is  a  certain  coolness  or  offhandness  which  at 
first  annoys  the  European  visitor,  who  still  thinks  himself  'a 
superior' ;  but  when  he  perceives  that  it  is  not  meant  for  inso- 
lence, and  that  native  Americans  do  not  notice  it,  he  learns  to 
acquiesce."  2 

1  "American  Commonwealth,"  p.  609. 

2  See  de  Tocqueville,  "Democracy  in  America,"  Vol.  II,  p.  214. 
De  Tocqueville  puts  this  in  more  theoretic  form:   "The  more  equal 


206  AS    OTHERS    SEE   US 

"The  second  charm  of  American  life  is  one  which  some 
Europeans  will  smile  at.  It  is  social  equality.  To  many 
Europeans  —  to  Germans,  let  us  say,  or  Englishmen  —  the 
word  has  an  odious  sound.  It  suggests  a  dirty  fellow  in  a 
blouse  elbowing  his  betters  in  a  crowd,  or  an  ill-conditioned 
villager  shaking  his  fist  at  the  parson  or  the  squire ;  or,  at  any 
rate,  it  suggests  obtrusiveness  and  bad  manners.  The  exact 
contrary  is  the  truth.  Equality  improves  manners,  for  it 
strengthens  the  basis  of  all  good  manners,  respect  for  other 
men  and  women  simply  as  men  and  women,  irrespective  of 
their  station  in  life." 

Mr.  Bryce  admits  that  forty  years  ago  the  influence 
of  equality  may  have  impaired  manners,  but  denies 
that  this  is  any  longer  true.  He  says :  — 

"In  those  days  there  was  an  obtrusive  self-assertiveness, 
among  the  less  refined  classes,  especially  towards  those  who, 
coming  from  the  Old  World,  were  assumed  to  come  in  a  pat- 
ronizing spirit.  Now,  however,  social  equality  has  grown  so 
naturally  out  of  the  circumstances  of  the  country,  has  been 
so  long  established,  and  is  so  ungrudgingly  admitted,  that  all 
excuse  for  obtrusiveness  has  disappeared.  People  meet  on  a 
simple  and  natural  footing,  with  more  frankness  and  ease 
than  is  possible  in  countries  where  every  one  is  either  looking 
up  or  looking  down."  * 

social  conditions  become,  the  more  do  men  display  this  reciprocal 
disposition  to  oblige  each  other.  In  democracies,  no  great  bene- 
fits are  conferred,  but  good  offices  are  constantly  rendered;  a  man 
seldom  displays  self-devotion,  but  all  men  are  ready  to  be  of  service 
to  one  another." 

1  Sir  Charles  Lyell  on  his  later  visit  is  struck  by  the  advantage 
which  the  United  States  has  over  England  in  allowing  men  to  take 
humbler  business  positions  with  no  loss  of  social  prestige.  So 
many  "younger  sons"  are  driven  from  England  by  "aristocratic 
prejudice"  as  to  what  is  genteel.  —  "North  America,"  Vol.  I, 
p.  20. 


DEMOCRACY    AND    MANNERS  207 

The  spirit  of  all  this  accords  with  Hamerton's 
judgment  that  the  French  are  uat  once  a  very  polite 
and  a  very  rude  people."  He  says  the  uses  to  which 
the  upper  class  put  their  politeness  is  to  defend  them- 
selves against  the  intimacies  of  people  whom  they 
do  not  want  to  know.  He  says  his  own  countrymen, 
the  English,  do  not  care  in  the  least  about  a  reputa- 
tion for  politeness.  They  defend  themselves  against 
intimacies  by  "roideur  and  dignity."  1 

That  democracy  is  to  deform  all  life's  graces  is  a 
kind  of  faith  with  the  older  writers.  The  most  unre- 
lated annoyance  is  sure  to  be  traced  to  this  source 
or  to  some  supposed  derivative,  as  for  example, 
"woman's  rights."  That  charming  story-teller, 
Anthony  Trollope,  has  his  fling  in  this  passage :  — 

"The  woman,  as  she  enters,  drags  after  her  a  misshapen, 
dirty  mass  of  battered  wirework,  which  she  calls  her  crinoline, 
and  which  adds  as  much  to  her  grace  and  comfort  as  a  log  of 
wood  does  to  a  donkey,  when  tied  to  the  animal's  leg  in  a 

1  The  French  novelist,  Marcel  Prevost,  writes  an  article  in  the 
Figaro  on  the  English  in  which  he  says:  "I  should  not  belong  to  a 
Latin  race  if,  in  view  of  all  this,  I  did  not  venture  to  compare  our- 
selves with  these  conquerors.  I  find  them  less  intelligent,  less 
really  cultivated  than  ourselves  ;  less  cultivated  and  less  laborious 
than  the  Germans.  Nevertheless  it  is  not  the  Germans,  and  it  is 
certainly  not  ourselves,  who,  nowadays,  give  the  world  its  rules  of 
life.  It  is  the  English  who  do  so.  In  a  different  order  of  things, 
but  in  an  equal  measure,  they  exercise  upon  the  manners  of  the 
world  the  measure  of  authority  which  the  French  exercised  in  the 
eighteenth  century. 

"The  English  are  now  almost  the  sole  people  who  have  really 
national  manners."  He  also  finds  the  English,  whom  he  calls 
"The  Conquerors,"  more  "adaptable"  than  the  French. 


208  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

paddock.  Of  this  she  takes  much  heed,  not  managing  it  so 
that  it  may  be  conveyed  up  to  the  carriage  with  some  decency, 
but  striking  it  about  against  men's  legs,  and  heaving  it  with 
violence  over  people's  knees.  The  touch  of  a  real  woman's 
dress  is  in  itself  delicate ;  but  these  blows  from  a  harpy's  fins 
are  loathsome.  If  there  be  two  of  them,  they  talk  loudly 
together,  having  a  theory  that  modesty  has  been  put  out  of 
court  by  women's  rights." 

De  Tocqueville,  in  his  chapter  on  the  Relation  of 
Democracy  to  Manners,  says,  "Equality  of  condi- 
tions and  greater  mildness  in  manners  are,  then,  in 
my  eyes  not  only  contemporaneous  occurrences,  but 
correlative  facts." l  He  opens  the  chapter  with 
these  words,  "We  perceive  that  for  several  centuries 
social  conditions  have  tended  to  equality,  and  we 
discover  that  at  the  same  time  the  manners  of  society 
have  been  softened." 

Matthew  Arnold  deserves  a  place  among  these 
witnesses  of  the  higher  rank.  In  his  "Impressions 
of  America,"  this  prince  of  critics  pays  merciless 
attention  to  some  of  our  limitations  and  vulgarities. 
He  does  it  in  a  tone  of  too  much  conscious  ascendency 
over  our  poor  humanity.  This  often  rasps  the  soul. 
But  no  book  ever  written  about  us  has,  it  seems  to 
me,  more  truth  that  we  need  to  know,  packed  into 
small  space,  like  gold  in  the  vein,  than  this  little 
volume.  Note  the  reason  he  gives  why  some  of  our 
women  have  better  manners  than  English  women 
of  the  same  class. 

1  "Democracy  in  America,"  Vol.  II,  p.  198. 


DEMOCRACY    AND    MANNERS  2  09 

"I  have  often  heard  it  observed  that  a  perfectly  natural  man- 
ner is  as  rare  among  English  women  of  the  middle  classes  as  it 
is  general  among  American  women  of  like  condition  with 
them.  And  so  far  as  the  observation  is  true,  the  reason  of  its 
truth  no  doubt  is,  that  the  English  woman  is  living  in  presence 
of  an  upper  class,  as  it  is  called  —  in  presence,  that  is,  of  a 
class  of  women  recognized  as  being  the  right  thing  in  style  and 
manner,  and  whom  she  imagines  criticising  her  style  and  man- 
ner, finding  this  or  that  to  be  amiss  with  it,  this  or  that  to  be 
vulgar.  Hence,  self-consciousness  and  constraint  in  her. 
The  American  woman  lives  in  presence  of  no  such  class ;  there 
may  be  circles  trying  to  pass  themselves  off  as  such  a  class, 
giving  themselves  airs  as  such,  but  they  command  no  recog- 
nition, no  authority." 

I  do  not  quote  this  because  of  the  tribute  in  it, 
but  to  show  his  spirit  toward  manners  as  related  to 
organized  social  snobbery.  The  manners  that  come 
from  class  subserviency  we  do  not  want.  Even  if 
long  in  the  making,  we  desire  the  deportment  that 
is  not  "humbled  into  shape"  by  artificial  class 
distinctions. 

To  put  this  demeanor  into  a  word  or  definition  is 
at  least  as  hard  as  to  define  religion.  The  paragon 
of  manners  would  have  that  first  indispensable 
requisite  —  delicate  consideration  of  the  feelings  of 
other  people.  He  would  also  have  the  graces  of 
external  carriage  and  behavior.  If  he  were  the 
paragon,  he  would  show  these  gifts  of  sensitive 
regard  to  others,  clothed  in  the  outer  charms  of 
bearing,  at  all  times  and  to  all  sorts  of  people.  He 
would  not  show  them  in  spots  or  upon  occasion  only. 
The  Germans  speak  of  "a  street  angel  and  a  home 


210  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

devil"  —  a  man  very  popular  in  public,  but  a  churl 
in  his  own  family.  In  one  of  Cherbuliez's  novels 
some  swell  of  noble  lineage  is  made  mayor  of  his 
commune.  A  lot  of  miscellaneous  citizens  come  to 
him  with  a  request.  He  stands  before  them  with 
the  polished  and  smiling  exterior  moulded  by  his 
traditions.  But  while  they  are  petitioning,  the 
Mayor  says  to  himself,  "I  wonder  what  this  vul- 
gar mob  would  think,  if  they  could  look  into  my 
mind  and  see,  this  minute,  just  how  I  am  despising 
them?"  This  is  the  cad,  yet  he  was  some  percent- 
age of  a  gentleman.  He  had  still  the  lacquered 
shell. 

I  was  once  on  a  very  trying  stage  drive  of  several 
days  in  the  West.  More  passengers  than  could  be 
decently  accommodated  had  to  get  through.  A 
woman  of  the  party  had  won  every  heart  at  the 
journey's  end  by  a  kindness  and  tact  which  prevented 
minor  quarrels  over  the  most  desirable  seats  or 
rooms  at  the  hotel.  It  was  all  done  with  entire 
unconsciousness.  Yet  she  would  openly  chew  gum 
by  the  hour,  use  the  knife  long  and  industriously 
upon  her  finger-nails,  and,  after  each  meal,  elabo- 
rately remove  the  food  from  her  teeth  with  her  hat- 
pin. One  of  the  party,  who  would  not  speak  to  her 
on  the  first  day,  said  at  the  end,  "That  is  the  most 
naturally  kind  person  I  ever  saw.  She  carried  us 
in  her  heart  the  whole  way." 

What  are  we  to  do  between  the  French  mayor 
with  the  human  feeling  all  gone,  and  this  woman 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MANNERS         2TI 

with  little  besides  human  good-will?  He  is  not  a 
gentleman  in  spite  of  inherited  gestures  and  grimaces 
and,  what  is  more,  there  is  no  alchemy  by  which 
he  can  be  made  into  a  gentleman.  And  the  woman 
who  "carried  us  all  in  her  heart,"  making  rough 
ways  smooth,  neither  is  she  quite  a  lady.  But  she 
has  this  greatly  in  her  favor,  that  the  most  indis- 
pensable of  all  gifts  was  hers  for  the  making  of 
the  lady.  It  is  here  that  Harriet  Martineau  comes 
to  our  aid.  She  has  heard  of  our  imperfect  ways 
and  her  decision  is  this,  that  as  far  as  extreme 
good-will,  consideration,  and  intelligence  to  help 
others  are  concerned,  "they  have  the  best  manners 
I  have  ever  seen."  This  at  least  is  better  than  the 
most  varnished  shell. 

Where  the  outer  and  inner  perfection  are  united, 
we  have  the  Paragon,  but  Emerson  says  this  rare 
flower  is  seen  "but  once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime." 
If  an  entire  people  is  considered,  this  combination 
of  outer  and  inner  graces  is  extremely  rare  in  all 
Western  nations.  Latin  peoples  censure  the  man- 
ners of  all  Northern  races;  but  Eastern  folk,  India, 
China,  Japan,  are  as  critical  of  the  brusque  and 
discourteous  ways  of  France.  It  is  all  so  relative 
as  to  save  something  of  our  pride. 

So  far  as  improvement  and  right  direction  are  con- 
cerned, the  later  critics  give  us  gracious  encourage- 
ment. It  comes  not  alone  from  the  new  English 
ambassador.  The  historian  Freeman,  though  he 
says,  "No  one  teaches  you  your  place  so  well  as  the 


212  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

American  hotel  clerk,"  says  of  our  outer  life,  "I 
have  never,  on  land  at  least,  fallen  in  with  the 
pushing,  questioning  fellow-traveller,  a  dim  tradi- 
tion of  whom  we  are  likely  to  take  out  with  us.  As 
for  the  American  hotel,  it  is  not  an  inn,  but  an 
institution."  And  of  our  home  manners,  "In  pri- 
vate life,  the  American  strikes  me  as,  on  the  whole, 
more  ceremonious  than  the  Englishman  on  this 
side  of  the  ocean.  I  do  not  profess  to  know  how 
far  this  may  be  owing  to  the  absence  of  acknowl- 
edged artificial  distinctions,  but  it  seems  not  unlikely 
that  the  two  things  may  have  something  to  do  with 
one  another.  It  certainly  did  strike  me  on  the  whole 
that,  among  those  with  whom  I  had  to  do  in  America, 
there  was  not  less,  but  more  attention  paid  to  minute 
observances  than  there  is  in  England."  l 

1  "Impressions  of  the  United  States,"  1883,  pp.  235  and  203. 

That  other  English  historian,  J.  Anthony  Froude,  also  wrote 
these  words,  "Nowhere  in  America  have  I  met  with  vulgarity  in 
its  proper  sense." 


CHAPTER  XII 

OUR  MONOPOLY  OF  WIT 

ONE  of  our  English  visitors,  after  travelling  sev- 
eral months  in  the  United  States,  showed  concern  be- 
cause of  our  lack  of  humor.  When  he  reached  the 
Mississippi,  he  expressed  his  delight  because  he  met 
a  new  kind  of  American  who  "sometimes  understood 
a  joke." 

"In  general,  I  thought  they  had  less  of  the  frigid,  uninvit- 
ing formality  which  characterizes  the  Americans  further  to 
the  eastward.  They  were  somewhat  gruff,  indeed,  at  times; 
but  they  seemed  to  trust  themselves  and  us  with  more  readi- 
ness, and  sometimes  understood  a  joke,  which  I  hardly  ever  saw 
exemplified  on  this  side  of  the  Mississippi."  1 

I  still  recall  the  mental  agitation  roused  by  those 
four  words,  "sometimes  understood  a  joke."  That 
they  fitly  applied  to  other  nations  was  something 
I  had  long  taken  for  granted,  but  here  they  were 
fixed  upon  the  funniest  people  in  the  world  —  the 
Americans.  It  proved  very  amusing  to  put  this  pas- 
sage before  friends  whose  patriotic  pieties  had  never 
been  disturbed.  I  had  lived  half  a  life  without 
once  asking  why  the  Americans  should  have  en- 
grossed a  possession  so  precious  as  the  world's  wit 

1  "Travels  in  North  America,"  Vol.  Ill,  p.  355. 
213 


214  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

and  humor.  Had  it  come  to  this,  that,  of  all  the 
world,  an  English  tourist  was  to  lay  rough  hands  on 
a  belief  so  sanctified  ?  I  read  the  passage  to  one  of 
the  most  amusing  of  our  countrymen.  He  listened 
to  it  as  if  dazed.  When  it  was  repeated  to  him,  he 
said,  "Is  that  his  way  of  being  funny?"  When 
it  was  shown  that  Captain  Hall  was  not  trifling,  the 
American  replied,  "Well,  what  would  you  expect 
of  an  Englishman  ?"  This  is  the  American  attitude. 
By  some  alchemy,  nature  has  endowed  us  with 
capacities  for  humor  that  makes  us  lonely  among 
the  nations.  We  have  all  been  brought  up  on 
sallies  against  the  English  for  the  leisurely  way  in 
which  they  respond  to  Yankee  wit.  Few  of  us  have 
not  heard  at  least  a  thousand  of  those  merry  tales 
to  illustrate  the  sluggish  ways  of  the  British  in 
"seeing"  our  jokes.  It  is,  therefore,  with  unusual 
emotion  that  we  read  of  Hall's  discovery,  —  an 
American  who  "sometimes  understood  a  joke." 

A  German  meant  to  compliment  us  when  he  wrote 
that  he  noticed  an  improvement  in  the  appreciation 
of  humor  in  the  United  States,  as  if  there  were,  after 
all,  hope  for  us  in  this  respect.  Edmond  de  Nevers 
is  struck  by  "the  absence  of  the  sense  of  the  ridicu- 
lous." He  thinks  we  owe  such  prestige  as  we  have 
to  the  Irish.  Even  our  pleasantries  against  the 
Paddy  "are  mostly  by  the  descendants  of  the 
Irish,"  though  he  makes  no  reference  to  Mr.  Dooley. 
Dickens  wrote  of  us,  "They  certainly  are  not  a 
humorous  people,"  though  he  admitted  that  we  had 


OUR    MONOPOLY    OF    WIT  21$ 

"a  certain  cast-iron  quaintness"  in  which  the  New 
England  Yankee  "takes  the  lead."1 

An  American  much  in  Oxford  confesses  to  have 
told  one  of  his  most  irresistible  stories  at  a  college 
dinner  given  by  one  of  the  Dons.  "When  I  fin- 
ished," he  said,  "there  wasn't  a  laugh  around  the 
table.  I  attributed  it  to  the  habitual  stolidity  of 
the  English  in  the  presence  of  a  good  joke.  I 
hinted  as  much  to  the  man  next  me,  who  said,  '  Oh, 
but  we  have  been  telling  that  ever  since  the  Master 
of  Trinity  got  it  off.' "  The  American  added,  "  That 
was  my  first  shock.  I  honestly  thought  we  had  a 
monopoly  of  humor  that  nobody  even  questioned." 
That  is  probably  still  the  opinion  of  most  good 
Americans.2 

Even  if  true,  it  is  stiffly  gainsaid  by  many  of  these 
foreign  critics.  One  of  the  French  writers  makes  a 
special  study  of  our  funny  papers.  After  spending 
a  good  deal  of  time  on  the  files  of  Puck  and  Judge, 
he  says,  "If  these  are  supposed  by  their  readers  to 
be  examples  of  humor,  those  who  read  them  have 
that  sense  only  in  its  most  elemental  stage  of  develop- 

1  "American  Notes,"  p.  206. 

1  This  is  like  the  angered  surprise  of  an  Englishman  as  he 
read  the  advice  in  an  American  paper,  that  a  party  just  off  for 
England  should  keep  with  their  own  countrymen  and  "so  avoid 
the  horrid  English  intonation."  To  suggest  that  the  English  peo- 
ple had  either  accent  or  intonation  seemed  to  him  an  indignity. 

An  American  in  Austria  has  a  kindred  emotion  in  reading  in 
a  restaurant  a  placard  on  which  was  written,  "  English  spoken  and 
American  understood." 


2l6  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

ment.  How  can  a  really  intelligent  people  think 
such  horseplay  —  des  grosses  plaisanteries  —  witty?" 
Harriet  Martineau  says  we  have  a  kind  of  drollery 
that  is  neither  English  humor  nor  French  wit,  and 
Captain  Marryat,  who  certainly  did  not  lack  humor, 
says,  "There  is  no  country,  perhaps,  hi  which  the 
habit  of  deceiving  for  amusement,  or  what  is  termed 
hoaxing,  is  so  common.  Indeed,  this  and  the  hyper- 
bole constitute  the  major  part  of  the  American 
humor."  * 

When  Miss  Martineau  speaks  of  a  kind  of  jesting 
"in  conformity  with  our  institutions,"  she  throws 
light  on  this  whole  dark  problem.  I  once  heard  a 
Greek  scholar  read  from  a  collection  of  Greek  jokes. 
To  the  hearers,  nine  out  of  ten  of  these  ancient 
humors  were  of  such  exceeding  solemnity  that  all 
were  puzzled  to  know  why  they  should  be  classed 
among  things  called  funny.  But  in  the  audience 
not  six  of  us  knew  enough  of  Greek  institutions  and 
life  to  get  the  local  color  and  contrasts  that  created 
the  humorous  element.  An  American,  caring  enough 
for  the  English  Punch  to  subscribe  for  it,  told  me, 
"We  have  no  wittier  sheet,  but  the  regular  succession 
of  horse  and  racing  jokes  bores  me."  He  added, 
"I  neither  know  anything  nor  care  anything  about 
horses,"  which  gives  us  all  the  explanation  we  need. 
This  is  offset  by  a  German  who  thought  our  Life 
the  very  limit  of  dulness,  until  he  had  lived  a  year 
in  this  country:  "When  I  understood  something  of 

1  "A  Diary  in  America,"  Vol.  I,  p.  8. 


OUR   MONOPOLY    OF    WIT  217 

the  inner  life  of  the  nation,  its  politics,  industry,  and 
leading  social  events,  I  discovered  why  I  could  not 
at  first  appreciate  the  wit." 

That  hurrying  travellers  in  foreign  countries  should 
not  keep  in  mind  a  fact  so  elementary  as  this,  has  a 
grim  humor  of  its  own.  A  college  instructor  in  the 
East,  returning  from  his  first  summer  tour  on  the 
continent,  gravely  said  that  among  other  impressions 
he  was  struck  by  the  absence  of  humor  abroad. 
This  penetrating  voyager  had  a  slight  Ollendorff 
capacity  to  make  sentences  in  two  or  three  languages. 
With  the  subtle  and  pliant  idiom  of  these  tongues, 
he  had  not  even  a  nodding  acquaintance.  Of  the 
current  political  and  social  happenings  among  these 
peoples,  he  also  knew  little.  Yet  it  was  his  apparent 
expectation  to  be  admitted  forthwith  among  those 
intimacies  of  light  and  shade  in  national  experience, 
that  alone  can  give  the  key  to  wit  and  humor. 
The  "Souvenirs  a  la  Main"  in  the  Paris  Figaro 
are  not  explosively  entertaining  to  one  who  knows 
nothing  of  what  happens  from  day  to  day  in  the 
French  metropolis. 

An  American  who  had  lived  so  far  into  the  Pari- 
sian life  as  to  catch  the  zest  of  French  wit,  sub- 
scribed, when  he  returned  home,  for  the  Figaro. 
.  .  .  Within  a  few  weeks  the  sheet  had  lost  all 
interest  for  him  so  far  as  the  witticisms  were  con- 
cerned. To  read  them  in  his  New  England  home 
was  to  lose  the  whole  atmosphere  from  which  they 
took  their  flavor. 


2l8  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

We  need  not,  therefore,  be  utterly  cast  down  by 
the  chilling  tone  of  these  foreigners  about  our  own 
limitations.  They  do  embarrass  us  about  one  proud 
and  confident  claim,  namely,  that  we  possess  in 
some  supreme  and  exclusive  degree  the  gift  of  being 
funny.  That  we  have  varieties  of  wit  and  humor 
peculiar  to  our  traditions,  is  very  generally  ad- 
mitted. Here,  for  example,  is  an  attempt  at  a 
definition  of  English  as  against  Yankee  humor :  — 

"And  we  must  avow  that  in  our  opinion  the  Yankee  humor 
has  not  the  ruddy  health,  the  abounding  animal  spirits,  the 
glow  and  glory  of  healthful  and  hearty  life  of  our  greatest 
English.  As  the  Yankee  has  a  leaner  look,  a  thinner  humanity, 
than  the  typical  Englishman  who  gives  such  a  fleshy  and  burly 
embodiment  to  his  love  of  beef  and  beer,  so  the  humor  is  less 
plump  and  rubicund.  It  does  not  revel  in  the  same  richness 
nor  enjoy  its  wealth  in  the  same  happy  unconscious  way,  nor 
attain  to  the  like  fulness  and  play  of  power.  We  cannot 
imagine  Yankee  humor,  with  its  dry  drollery,  its  shrewd 
keeking,  shut-eyed  way  of  looking  at  things,  ever  embodying 
such  a  mountain  of  mirth  as  we  have  in  Falstaff." 

A  visitor  professes  to  have  cut  the  next  example 
from  an  Ohio  paper.  He  says  our  bragging  habits 
have  produced  a  humor  of  "rare  and  special  flavor." 
He  assumes  that  the  writer  is  making  merry  at  the 
expense  of  some  boasting  rival  editor :  — 

"This  is  a  glorious  country !  It  has  longer  rivers  and  more 
of  them,  and  they  are  muddier  and  deeper,  and  run  faster  and 
rise  higher,  and  make  more  noise,  and  fall  lower,  and  do  more 
damage  than  anybody  else's  rivers.  It  has  more  lakes,  and 
they  are  bigger  and  deeper,  and  clearer  and  wetter  than  those 
of  any  other  country.  Our  rail-cars  are  bigger,  and  run  faster, 


OUR   MONOPOLY   OF   WIT  219 

and  pitch  off  the  track  oftener,  and  kill  more  people  than  all 
other  rail-cars  in  this  and  every  other  country.  Our  steam- 
boats carry  bigger  loads,  are  longer  and  broader,  burst  their 
boilers  oftener,  and  send  up  their  passengers  higher,  and  the 
captains  swear  harder  than  steamboat  captains  in  any  other 
country.  Our  men  are  bigger  and  longer  and  thicker;  can 
fight  harder  and  faster,  drink  more  mean  whiskey,  chew  more 
bad  tobacco,  and  spit  more,  and  spit  further  than  in  any  other 
country.  Our  ladies  are  richer,  prettier,  dress  finer,  spend 
more  money,  break  more  hearts,  wear  bigger  hoops,  shorter 
dresses,  and  kick  up  the  devil  generally  to  a  greater  extent 
than  all  other  ladies  in  all  other  countries.  Our  children 
squall  louder,  grow  faster,  get  too  expansive  for  their  panta- 
loons, and  become  twenty  years  old  sooner  by  some  months 
than  any  other  children  of  any  other  country  on  the  earth." 

Earlier  in  the  century  the  Yankee  trader  is  thought 
to  have  developed  a  form  of  humor  of  which  this  is 
given  as  an  example :  — 

"Reckon  I  couldn't  drive  a  trade  with  you  to-day,  Square," 
said  a  genuine  specimen  of  the  Yankee  pedler  as  he  stood  at 
the  door  of  a  merchant  in  St.  Louis. 

"I  reckon  you  calculate  about  right,  for  you  can't  noways." 

"Wall,  guess  you  needn't  git  huffy,  'beout  it.  Now,  here's 
a  dozen  ginooine  razor-strops —  wuth  two  dollars  and  a  half 
—  you  may  hev  'em  for  two  dollars." 

"I  tell  you  I  don't  want  any  of  your  traps,  so  you  may  as 
well  be  going  along." 

"Wall,  now,  look  here,  Square.  I'll  bet  you  five  dollars 
that  if  you  make  me  an  offer  for  them  'ere  strops,  we'll  have  a 
trade  yet." 

"Done,"  said  the  merchant,  and  he  staked  the  money. 
"Now,"  says  he  chaffingly,  "I'll  give  you  sixpence  for  the 
strops." 

"They're  your'n !"  said  the  Yankee,  as  he  quietly  pocketed 


220  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

the  stakes!  "but,"  continued  he,  after  a  little  reflection,  and 
with  a  burst  of  frankness,  "I  calculate  a  joke's  a  joke;  and 
if  you  don't  want  them  strops,  I'll  trade  back."  The  merchant 
looked  brighter.  "You're  not  so  bad  a  chap  after  all,"  said 
he.  "Here  are  your  strops —  give  me  the  money."  "There 
it  is,"  said  the  Yankee,  as  he  took  the  strops  and  handed  back 
the  sixpence.  "A  trade  is  a  trade,  and  a  bet  a  bet.  Next 
time  you  trade  with  that  'ere  sixpence,  don't  you  buy  razor- 
strops." 

It  is,  however,  often  granted  that  this  endowment 
is  more  widely  diffused  among  our  people  than 
in  England.  Further  than  this,  most  of  the  critics 
do  not  go.  That  we  have  any  monopoly  of  what  is 
essential  to  the  soul  of  wit  and  humor  is  rather 
cavalierly  denied.  An  American  essayist,  the  charm 
and  delicacy  of  whose  humor  has  such  growing 
recognition,  has  recently  returned  from  six  months 
in  England,  where  he  was  in  much  popular  demand 
as  a  lecturer.1  He  tells  me  that  the  response  of  an 
English  audience  to  humor  seems  to  him  on  the  whole 
quicker  than  that  of  an  American  audience.  This  is 
probably  also  a  tribute  to  the  quality  of  the  lecturer's 
humor. 

Our  prolific  pleasantries  to  prove  the  poverty  of 
the  English  capacity  to  "catch  on"  are  really  very 
amazing.  Not  to  mention  Shakespeare  and  the 
wits  of  his  age,  what  is  to  be  said  of  Sydney  Smith, 
Charles  Lamb,  Jerrold,  Monckton  Milnes,  Thack- 
eray, Dickens,  Tom  Taylor,  and  many  others? 

1  Dr.  Samuel  M.  Crothers,  author  of  "The  Gentle  Reader," 
"The  Pardoner's  Wallet/'  etc. 


OUR    MONOPOLY    OF    WIT  221 

We  have  not  alone  to  think  of  these  individuals,  but 
to  think  also  that  England  furnished  the  audience 
to  appreciate  them,  which  is  even  more  to  the  pur- 
pose. Let  the  American  set  down  his  most  patriotic 
list  and  balance  them  against  the  English  wits.  Can 
we  outmatch  Sydney  Smith,  Charles  Lamb,  or 
Dickens  by  any  three  of  our  most  glittering  names? 
Any  summing  up  of  the  subtleties  of  French  wit 
would  embarrass  us  at  least  as  much.  I  select 
England  especially,  because  it  has  long  amused  us 
to  banter  her  for  her  general  density  in  these  matters. 

There  is  much  agreement  among  our  critics  that 
the  quality  of  American  humor  suffers  chiefly  from 
exaggeration;  that  the  elements  of  contrast  and 
surprise  are  put  to  great  strain ;  that  too  little  appeal 
is  made  to  the  imagination.  William  Archer  gives 
us  an  illustration:  A  Chicago  man  travelling  in 
Louisiana  wrote  to  his  sweetheart :  "  Dear  Mamie,  — 
I  have  shot  an  alligator.  When  I  have  shot  another, 
I  will  send  you  a  pair  of  slippers."  * 

Again.  A  tired  traveller  arrives  at  a  country  hotel 
and  calls  for  a  bootjack  to  remove  his  boots.  The 
proprietor  noticing  the  size  of  his  guest's  feet  says, 
"You  come  by  the  Croyden  road,  didn't  ye?" 
"Yes."  "Wall,  you  noticed  that  one  road  forked 
off  toward  Westbridge.  I'm  tellin'  you  this,  be- 
cause no  bootjack  made  by  the  hand  of  man  will 
git  them  boots  off.  You've  got  to  go  back  to  the 
fork  in  them  roads." 

1  "America  To-day,"  p.  99. 


222  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

The  French  find  most  fault  with  this  extrava- 
gance, especially  as  seen  upon  the  stage.  If  they 
find  it  on  the  ranch  or  in  a  Western  paper,  the 
setting  appears  to  them  perfect.  One  boasts  that 
he  has  discovered  the  essence  of  American  fun  in 
this  exaggeration  coupled  with  our  inveterate  good 
nature.  "  They  show  a  droll  solicitude  not  to  injure 
any  one's  feelings,  even  though  he  be  an  arrant 
scamp."  This  Frenchman,  staying  in  a  small 
California  hotel,  is  tricked  out  of  a  sum  of  money  by 
a  sharper  who  lived  on  friendly  terms  with  everybody 
in  the  town.  The  victim  rushes  to  the  landlord. 
"But  this  fellow  is  what  you  call  a  crook.  Is  it 
not  so?  Is  he  not  a  thief,  a  thief?"  The  landlord, 
quite  undisturbed,  replies,  "Wall,  that's  a  purty 
strong  word  you're  usin'.  I  shouldn't  like  to  call 
him  a  thief,  though  after  I  shake  hands  with  him, 
I  do  generally  count  my  fingers."  1 

Another  variation  attributed  to  us  is  a  tendency  to 
make  one's  self  out  very  vicious  in  order  to  heighten 

1  This  guest  reports  an  instance  in  still  milder  form.  "But 
did  you  ever  see  a  stingier  old  skinflint?"  To  which  is  replied,  "I 
don't  know's  he's  stingy  exactly,  but  he  does  keep  his  benevolent 
impulses  pretty  well  under  control." 

A  very  recent  traveller,  whose  chief  interest  was  the  study  of 
Christian  Science,  hears  of  some  one  who  has  abandoned  his  con- 
nection with  this  faith.  The  investigator  eagerly  seeks  to  know 
the  reasons  for  the  man's  apostasy.  "But  why,"  he  asks,  "having 
enjoyed  such  an  experience,  did  you  give  up?"  "Well,  to  tell  you 
the  truth,"  was  the  reply,  "I  just  got  tired  out  being  so  d — d  happy 
all  the  time."  This  was  at  once  classed  as  American  humor,  and 
would  be  very  pointless  in  any  community  which  knew  nothing  of 
what  is  at  least  popularly  attributed  to  this  faith. 


OUR    MONOPOLY    OF    WIT  223 

the  effect.  A  newly  arrived  English  prelate,  with 
much  clerical  excess  in  his  appearance,  boards  a 
trolley  car  in  New  York.  He  is  on  the  alert  for 
information.  Seeing  what  he  supposes  to  be  a 
vigorous  working-class  specimen,  he  sits  down  by 
him  with  the  question,  "I  hear  you  have  been  having 
very  interesting  political  events  here  in  New  York 
during  the  last  week  or  two."  The  gentleman 
from  the  Bowery  turned  to  take  a  leisurely  but  rather 
consuming  look  at  his  questioner,  "I  don't  know," 
was  the  answer,  "  I've  been  drunk  the  last  fortnight," 
and  the  conversation  closed. 

Another  variety  is  left  without  definition,  but  this 
French  inquisitor  thinks,  I  know  not  why,  that  it 
could  have  happened  nowhere  out  of  America.  A 
Western  paper  notices  the  death  of  "our  old  friend 
and  neighbor  Lyman  Rogers."  Sympathy  is  ex- 
pressed for  the  bereaved  wife,  followed  by  a  tribute 
to  the  dead,  and  closing  with  the  words,  "He  has 
gone  to  a  better  home."  Whereupon  the  newly 
made  widow  brings  instant  action  for  libel  against 
the  editor. 

One  reviewer  writes  that  the  most  peculiar  form  of 
American  humor  is  the  "high  falutin."  The  follow- 
ing, which  he  thinks  is  by  Webster,  "  is  the  best  of  its 
kind":- 

"Men  of  Rochester,  I  am  glad  to  see  you;  and  I  am  glad  to 
see  your  noble  city.  Gentlemen,  I  saw  your  falls,  which  I  am 
told  are  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high.  This  is  a  very  inter- 
esting fact.  Gentlemen,  Rome  had  her  Caesar,  her  Scipio, 


224  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

her  Brutus,  but  Rome  in  her  proudest  days  had  never  a  water- 
fall a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high!  Gentlemen,  Greece  had 
her  Pericles,  her  Demosthenes,  and  her  Socrates,  but  Greece 
in  her  palmiest  days  NEVER  had  a  waterfall  a  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  high!  Men  of  Rochester,  go  on.  No  people  ever 
lost  their  liberties  who  had  a  waterfall  one  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  high!" 

From  frontier  life  an  Englishman  quotes  this  as 
"impossible  in  any  other  country."  An  elderly 
lady  from  the  East,  with  a  passion  for  botanical 
studies,  goes  into  the  cowboy's  country,  builds  a 
small  house,  and  begins  her  work  of  collecting  speci- 
mens. Absorbed  one  day  at  her  work  far  out  on  the 
prairie,  she  sees  a  cowboy  riding  toward  her  as  for 
life.  When  within  call,  he  cries  out,  "Your  house 
is  on  fire!"  What  the  botanic  lady  expected  hi 
way  of  news  is  unreported,  but  she  said  to  the 
cowboy,  " Oh,  is  that  all?"  Whereupon  the  amazed 
ranchman  exclaimed,  "Well,  God  bless  my  soul, 
Madam,  that's  all  I  think  of  at  the  present  moment, 
but  I'll  look  round  the  country  and  see  if  I  can  find 
something  to  interest  you,"  and  rides  away. 

Another  visitor  is  told  by  a  Southern  teacher,  the 
late  Dr.  Mclver,  that  our  travelling  salesmen  — 
drummers  —  are  the  reservoirs  of  what  is  most 
peculiar  in  American  wit.  Dr.  Mclver  added  that 
the  drummers,  immediately  after  the  Civil  War, 
were  the  first  real  peacemakers.  They  went  in 
large  numbers  through  the  Southland  seeking  trade. 
There  was  the  never  failing  resource  of  a  batch  of 
good  stories.  "During  these  first  bitter  years," 


OUR   MONOPOLY    OF   WIT  225 

said  the  Doctor,  "when  the  clergy,  editors,  and  poli- 
ticians were  fighting  each  other  across  the  line,  the 
drummer  was  the  real  brother  and  neighbor,  and  it 
convinces  me  that  the  Good  Samaritan  was  himself 
a  drummer.  You  remember  that  the  church  folk 
came  upon  the  poor  fellow  and  the  first  said,  'This 
is  too  bad,  but  I  have  an  appointment  in  Jericho, 
so  I  will  ask  some  one  from  the  Christian  Association 
to  look  out  for  him.'  The  next  man  —  probably  a 
deacon  —  has  to  meet  his  wife  in  Jericho  at  five 
o'clock,  and  thinks  he  will  telephone  to  the  Associated 
Charities  to  take  up  the  case.  Finally  comes  the 
drummer,  who  is  touched  by  compassion.  He  takes 
the  poor  fellow  in  hand,  according  to  scripture. 
The  internal  evidence  that  he  was  a  drummer  is 
complete.  He  knew  where  the  best  hotel  was;  he 
was  coming  that  way  again,  and  he  had  liquor  by 
him." 

From  the  press  an  Englishman  cuts  out  the  two 
following  as  "very  characteristic":  "Wanted,  a 
servant  girl  that  isn't  above  living  on  an  equality 
with  the  family."  Seeing  a  large  number  of  hacks 
in  a  funeral,  the  traveller  asks  a  man  on  the  street, 
if  some  important  citizen  has  died.  "No,  not  very; 
and  you  know,  Stranger,  you  can't  always  tell  just 
what  estimate  the  Almighty  puts  on  a  departed  soul, 
by  the  number  of  hacks." 

Another  selects  as  "peculiarly  American"  the 
following  from  Josh  Billings :  — 

"The  mule  is  half  horse  and  half  jackass,  and  then  comes 
Q 


226  AS    OTHERS   SEE   US 

to  a  full  stop,  Nature  discovering  her  mistake.  The  only  way 
to  keep  a  mule  in  a  pasture  is  to  turn  it  into  a  meadow  adjoin- 
ing, and  let  it  jump  out.  They  are  like  some  men,  very  cor- 
rupt at  heart.  I've  known  them  to  be  good  mules  for  six 
months,  just  to  get  a  good  chance  to  kick  somebody." 

"Some  people  are  fond  of  bragging  about  their  ancestors, 
and  their  great  descent,  when  in  fact  their  great  descent  is  just 
what  is  the  matter  with  them." 

"  God  save  the  fools,  and  don't  let  them  run  out !  for  if  it 
wasn't  for  them,  wise  men  couldn't  get  a  living." 

"It  is  true  that  wealth  won't  make  a  man  virtuous,  but  I 
notice  there  ain't  anybody  who  wants  to  be  poor  just  for  the 
purpose  of  being  good." 

It  is  drolleries  like  these  that  attract  attention, 
especially  from  the  English.  A  Frenchman  con- 
fesses that  he  "  spent  days  trying,  without  success, 
to  see  why  Mr.  Dooley  should  be  given  such  high 
rank."  All  readers  of  "Tartarin"  know  that  Al- 
phonse  Daudet  did  not  lack  humor,  yet  he  is  said 
to  have  done  his  best  to  laugh  over  the  pages  of 
Mark  Twain,  but  always  in  vain. 

One  critic  cuts  from  a  Pittsburg  paper  an  account 
of  a  suicide  who  left  ample  justification  for  taking  his 
life  in  the  following  culmination  of  misfortunes :  — 

"I  married  a  widow  who  had  a  grown-up  daughter.  My 
father  visited  our  house  very  often,  fell  in  love  with  my  step- 
daughter and  married  her.  So  my  father  became  my  son-in- 
law,  and  my  step-daughter  my  mother,  because  she  was  my 
father's  wife.  Some  time  afterwards  my  wife  had  a  son  — 
he  was  my  father's  brother-in-law  and  my  uncle,  for  he  was 
the  brother  of  my  step-mother.  My  father's  wife,  i.e.  my 
step-daughter,  had  also  a  son ;  he  was,  of  course,  my  brother, 


OUR    MONOPOLY    OF    WIT  227 

and  in  the  meantime  my  grandchild,  for  he  was  the  son  of  my 
daughter.  My  wife  was  my  grandmother,  because  she  was 
my  mother's  mother.  I  was  my  wife's  husband  and  grand- 
child at  the  same  time.  And  as  the  husband  of  a  person's 
grandmother  is  his  grandfather,  I  was  my  own  grandfather." 

If  there  are  shades  of  difference  in  American 
humor,  Miss  Martineau's  suggestion  is  right,  that 
the  differences  are  largely  traceable  to  whatever  is 
peculiar  in  our  institutions  and  national  experience. 
This  is  the  commonplace  with  which  we  began,  but 
which  very  few  travellers  among  foreign  peoples 
appear  to  realize  in  their  attempts  to  standardize 
wit.1  I  have  heard  several  Americans,  still  cutting 
their  teeth  upon  the  language,  insist  that  the  German 
funny  paper,  Fliegende  Blaetter,  was  very  heavy  and 
not  in  the  least  to  be  compared  with  some  humorous 
American  sheet.  But  how  could  a  callow  provin- 
cialism like  this  justify  itself?  If  there  is  anywhere 
in  the  world  a  detached  and  cosmopolitan  genius 
competent  to  act  as  umpire,  it  is  conceivable  that 
he  would  declare  Life  funnier  than  Fliegende  Blaetter 
or  vice  -versa  —  but  it  is  not  conceivable  that  out- 
siders, such  as  these  American  students  still  were, 
should  have  any  opinion  of  the  slightest  value  on  that 
subject.  To  know  whether  the  German  sheet  is 

1  I  have  heard  very  sniffy  comments  by  an  outsider  on  the 
merry  works  of  Wilhelm  Busch,  author  of  Max  and  Moritz,  etc. 
It  could  not  be  compared  to  the  "high  quality"  of  the  Frenchman 
Caran  d'Ache,  for  example.  But  to  "democratize  laughter,"  to 
add  to  the  jollity  of  an  entire  nation  decade  after  decade  is  a  fact 
behind  which  we  cannot  go. 


228  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

witty  or  otherwise  requires  an  intimacy  of  touch  with 
delicate  phases  of  life  and  thought  that  only  years 
can  give.  I  listened  to  a  play  in  Paris,  which  at 
two  points  brought  out  from  the  audience  a  tumult 
of  merriment.  I  had  carefully  read  the  play  and 
perfectly  understood  the  laughter-provoking  sen- 
tences, but  it  was  several  days  before  I  could  fall  in 
with  the  gaiety.  I  found  the  explanation  at  last 
in  the  grotesque  awkwardness  in  which  a  pompous 
local  mayor  had  entangled  himself.  I  stood  quite 
as  much  in  need  of  a  surgical  operation  to  admit  the 
joke  as  Sydney  Smith's  Scotchman.  But  that  need 
is  common  to  all  the  world  until  it  is  admitted  into 
this  inner  and  familiar  life  of  a  people.  Not  only 
have  the  general  currents  of  national  experience 
to  be  known,  but  also  the  more  hidden  currents  of 
tradition,  custom,  and  prejudice  as  these  express 
themselves  in  the  emotions  of  the  hour.  It  was  only 
after  several  years  of  continuous  life  in  France  that 
Hamerton  could  get  the  full  humor  of  a  provincial 
theatre. 

If  we  are  content  with  modest  tributes,  they  do  not 
fail.  I  asked  an  English  author  of  one  of  the  really 
good  books  upon  the  United  States  *  how  he  would 
state  the  difference  between  the  English  and  Ameri- 
can appreciation  of  humor.  This  gentleman  has 
lived  long  in  this  country  and  his  book  shows  an 
admirable  competence  to  judge.  He  said,  "I  think 
the  difference  is  a  real  one,  that  the  people  of  this 
1  "The  Land  of  Contrasts." 


OUR   MONOPOLY   OF   WIT  229 

country  have  a  more  generally  diffused  sense  of 
humor  than  hi  England."  Professor  Miinsterberg 
gives  his  judgment  as  follows.  He  has  also  been 
here  long  enough  to  give  weight  to  his  words.  He 
characterizes  the  quality  as  "whimsical,"  but  adds 
that  it  is  a  great  social  equalizer. 

"There  is  only  one  more  sovereign  power  than  the  spirit 
of  sport  in  breaking  down  all  social  distinctions;  it  is  American 
humor.  We  could  not  speak  of  political  or  intellectual  life 
without  emphasizing  this  irrepressible  humor;  but  we  must 
not  forget  it  for  a  moment  in  speaking  of  social  life,  for  its 
influence  pervades  every  social  situation.  The  only  ques- 
tion is  whether  it  is  the  humor  which  overcomes  every  dis- 
turbance of  social  equilibrium  and  so  restores  the  conscious- 
ness of  free  and  equal  self-assertion,  or  whether  it  is  this 
consciousness  which  fosters  humor  and  seeks  expression  in  a 
good-natured  lack  of  respect.  No  immoderation,  no  improper 
presumption,  and  no  pomposity  can  survive  the  first  humorous 
comment,  and  the  American  does  not  wait  long  for  this.  The 
soap-bubble  is  pricked  amid  genial  laughter,  and  equality  is 
restored.  Whether  it  is  in  a  small  matter  or  whether  in  a 
question  of  national  importance,  a  latent  humor  pervades  all 
social  life. 

"A  happy  humorous  turn  will  remind  them  all  that  they  are 
equal  fellow-citizens,  and  that  they  are  not  to  take  their  differ- 
ent functions  in  life  too  solemnly,  nor  to  suppose  that  their 
varied  outward  circumstances  introduce  any  real  inequality. 
As  soon  as  Americans  hear  a  good  story,  they  come  at  once  to 
an  understanding,  and  it  is  well  known  that  many  political 
personalities  have  succeeded  because  of  their  wit,  even  if  its 
quantity  was  more  than  its  quality."  l 

Mr.  Bryce's  experience  has  so  much  in  common 

1  "The  Americans,"  pp.  543-544. 


230  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

with  our  own,  that  we  listen  to  him  on  this  delicate 
point  without  pique. 

"There  is  a  difference,  slight  yet  perceptible,  in  the  part 
which  both  sentiment  and  humor  play  in  American  books, 
when  we  compare  them  with  English  books  of  equivalent 
strength.  The  humor  has  a  vein  of  oddity,  and  the  contrast 
between  the  soft  copiousness  of  the  sentiment  and  the  rigid 
lines  of  lingering  Puritanism  which  it  suffuses,  is  rarely  met 
with  in  England.  Perhaps  there  is  less  repose  in  the  American 
style;  there  is  certainly  a  curious  unrestfulness  in  the  effort, 
less  common  in  English  writers,  to  bend  metaphors  to  un- 
wonted uses."  * 

"Humor  is  a  sweetener  of  temper,  a  copious  spring  of 
charity,  for  it  makes  the  good  side  of  bad  things  even  more 
visible  than  the  weak  side  of  good  things ;  but  humor  in  Ameri- 
cans may  be  as  much  a  result  of  an  easy  and  kindly  turn  as 
their  kindliness  is  of  their  humor."  * 

This  partial  analysis  which  our  critics  help  us  to 
make  does  not  deprive  us  of  a  single  jocose  talent. 
It  is  not  that  we  are  lacking,  but  rather  that  others 
are  more  richly  endowed  than  we  were  aware.  It 
looks  as  if  we  had  preened  ourselves  upon  a  far  too 
exclusive  possession  of  the  "rare  sweetener  of  life's 
severities."  To  know  that  our  foreign  neighbors 
have  this  solace,  even  as  we  have  it,  ought  to  be  good 
news  to  us.  To  be  cocksure  that  we  are  the  funniest 
among  nations  would  too  surely  bring  upon  us  from 
impartial  outsiders  that  most  damning  criticism, 
"lack  of  humor"  on  our  own  part. 

1  "The  American  Commonwealth,"  Vol.  II,  p.  618. 
J  Ibid.,  p.  666. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

OUR    GREATEST    CRITIC 

IN  the  Introduction  to  "The  American  Common- 
wealth" Mr.  Bryce  says,  "When  I  first  visited 
America  eighteen  years  ago,  I  brought  home  a 
swarm  of  bold  generalizations.  Half  of  them  were 
thrown  overboard  after  a  second  visit  in  1881.  Of 
the  half  that  remained,  some  were  dropped  into  the 
Atlantic  when  I  returned  across  it  after  a  third  visit 
in  1883-1884;  and  although  the  two  later  journeys 
gave  birth  to  some  new  views,  these  views  are  fewer 
and  more  discreetly  cautious  than  their  departed 
sisters  of  1870.  "* 

If  this  openness  and  flexibility  of  mind  are  in- 
dispensable to  the  critic's  judgment,  another  quali- 
fication already  noted  is  not  less  so.  It  is  an 
unforced  human  sympathy  with  one's  fellowmen. 
I  heard  a  snobbish  American  ask  Phillips  Brooks  in 
Europe  how  he  managed  to  avoid  the  crowd  of  his 
fellow-countrymen.  The  great  preacher's  answer 
had  in  it  an  edge  of  rebuke  and  severity  which  the 
printed  reply  does  not  convey.  "I  do  not  try  to 
avoid  them,  because  I  like  them."  "Because  I 
like  them!"  There  are  not  many  critics  who  can 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  4. 
251 


232  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

say  that  without  telling  lies.  Some  subtle  and  clever 
books  in  my  list  are  rich  in  entertainment,  but 
one  closes  them  with  the  feeling  that  the  writers  do 
not  like  their  kind ;  that  they  rather  fear  and  dislike 
too  close  contact  with  them. 

This  feeling  of  good-will  toward  one's  kind  may 
be  instantly  detected  in  every  first-rate  foreign  ob- 
server. It  is  in  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  it  is  in  Chevalier, 
it  is  in  de  Tocqueville,  it  is  in  James  Bryce.  There 
is  a  largeness  about  these  men  which  enables  them 
to  deal  with  human  nature  in  another  country,  at 
least  as  generously  as  they  would  deal  with  it  in 
their  own.  If  they  note  differences  in  habits,  cus-. 
toms,  and  behavior,  they  are  not  merely  pestered 
by  them,  but  rather  interested  to  account  for  and 
explain  them.  Lyell  finds  himself  in  a  small  town 
of  the  Middle  West  at  a  time  when  it  was  literally 
frontier.  He  is  annoyed  by  curious  and  persistent 
questions,  —  but  he  does  not  pillory  the  whole  town, 
like  Mrs.  Trollope,  as  intolerable  nuisances.  He 
does  not,  like  the  author  of  "Cyril  Thornton," 
look  upon  the  annoyance  merely  as  impertinence. 
As  a  man  of  science,  even  a  prying  inquisitiveness 
interests  him.  It  is  a  pity  that  its  exercise  must  be 
quite  so  personally  directed  to  his  clothes  and  glass, 
but  the  narrowness  and  monotony  of  their  lives  ex- 
plain this.  Curiosity  is  excellent  intellectual  ma- 
terial. When  the  community  has  more  varied 
interests,  this  eagerness  to  know  things  will  have  its 
higher  and  more  impersonal  expression.  To  philoso- 


JAMES  BRYCE 
Author  of  "  The  American  Commonwealth  " 


OUR   GREATEST   CRITIC  233 

phize  about  one's  kind  in  so  kindly  a  temper  as  this, 
in  the  very  midst  of  discomforts  and  awkward  intru- 
sions, is  given  to  no  man  who  does  not  like  his  fellows. 
One  could  quote  many  passages  from  "The  Ameri- 
can Commonwealth"  to  show  this  spirit  of  cosmo- 
politan good-fellowship  with  which  the  author  enters 
into  broad  human  relations  with  Americans.  Inr  his 
chapter  on  "The  Pleasantness  of  American  Life," 
he  says : — 

"This  naturalness  of  intercourse  is  a  distinct  addition  to  the 
pleasure  of  social  life.  It  enlarges  the  circle  of  possible  friend- 
ship by  removing  the  gene  which  in  most  parts  of  Europe  per- 
sons of  different  ranks  feel  in  exchanging  their  thoughts  on 
any  matters  save  those  of  business.  It  raises  the  humbler 
classes  without  lowering  the  upper;  indeed,  it  improves  the 
upper  no  less  than  the  lower  by  expunging  that  latent  insolence 
which  deforms  the  manners  of  so  many  of  the  European  rich 
or  great.  It  relieves  women  in  particular,  who  in  Europe  are 
especially  apt  to  think  of  class  distinctions,  from  that  sense  of 
constraint  and  uneasiness  which  is  produced  by  the  knowledge 
that  other  women  with  whom  they  come  in  contact  are  either 
looking  down  on  them,  or  at  any  rate  trying  to  gauge  and 
determine  their  social  position.  It  expands  the  range  of  a 
man's  sympathies,  and  makes  it  easier  for  him  to  enter  into 
the  sentiments  of  other  classes  than  his  own."  l 

Here  is  none  of  the  arch  snobbery  that  prides 
itself  on  the  exclusiveness  of  one's  friendships. 
That  is  good  which  enlarges  the  circle.  "Equality 
improves  manners,  for  it  strengthens  the  basis  of  all 
good  manners,  respect  for  other  men  and  women 
simply  as  men  and  women  irrespective  of  their  station 

1  Vol.  II,  p.  663. 


234  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

in  life"  This  is  the  inclusive  kindliness  which 
makes  democracy  possible.  There  is  neither  vapor- 
ing nor  cant  when  he  approves  the  social  condition 
in  which  the  shoemaker  and  the  factory  hand 
address  you  as  an  equal. 

In  the  first  few  days  Mr.  Bryce  confesses  to  the 
unpleasantness  he  felt  at  the  brusque  and  careless 
disregard  with  which  some  officials  treated  his 
inquiries.  He  soon  saw  that  this  was  without  in- 
tended offence  and  it  ceased  to  vex  or  even  disquiet 
him. 

The  smaller  critic  does  not  forgive  a  wounded 
personal  vanity.  The  defence  of  his  own  little 
dignity  becomes  at  once  his  main  concern.  One  of 
these  in  a  western  town  asks  a  man,  "who  looked 
as  if  he  needed  a  shilling,"  to  take  his  valise  to  the 
hotel.  The  needy  individual  turned  upon  him  with 
the  question,  "Stranger,  does  that  pack  require 
two  folks  to  carry  it?"  "No,  one  person  can  carry 
it."  "Well,  then,  I  guess  you'll  take  it  yourself; 
you  are  as  big  as  I  be  and  look  as  if  you'd  been 
livin'  at  a  better  boardin'-house  than  mine." 
The  victim  of  this  retort  was  incensed  beyond  meas- 
ure. "I  even  put  myself  out  a  little,"  he  says,  "to 
do  him  a  good  turn,  only  to  meet  this  brutal  rebuff." 
Mr.  Bryce  would  have  paid  money  to  get  such  a 
reply.  He  would  even  have  stayed  over  a  train  to 
make  the  man's  acquaintance.  It  is,  however, 
certain  that  Mr.  Bryce's  tone  and  manner  would 
never  have  called  forth  the  rebuff. 


OUR   GREATEST    CRITIC  235 

I  have  known  an  American  scholar  to  travel  some 
weeks  in  Germany  in  a  chronic  state  of  disgust  at 
the  brusqueness  of  the  lesser  German  officials.  He 
returned  for  a  longer  stay  in  that  country  to  learn, 
in  his  own  words,  that  "I  had  lost  half  the  pleasure 
of  that  first  trip  by  being  a  plain  —  fool.  I  finally 
learned  why  those  officials  take  themselves  and  their 
work  a  good  deal  more  seriously  than  we  do  in  our 
country,  and  I  also  learned  that  behind  the  manner, 
there  is  an  admirable  conscientiousness  and  will- 
ingness to  take  great  trouble  to  help  you  out  of 
difficulties." 

It  is  the  distinction  of  the  first-rate  critic  to 
assume  this  good-will  at  the  start.  He  assumes  it 
and  acts  upon  it  without  waiting  for  the  proofs. 

In  the  middle  of  the  last  century  a  German  by  the 
name  of  Platenius  thus  comments  on  the  American 
habit  of  sitting  with  the  feet  elevated  on  railings  and 
tables.  "I  have  not  yet  found  the  cause  of  this  very 
common  practice,  but  I  am  confident  it  is  explained 
and  justified  by  some  physiological  reason  like  that 
of  imperfect  digestion  or  circulation."  This  diag- 
nosis may  be  at  fault,  but  the  temper  is  that  of  the 
perfect  traveller.  Mr.  Bryce  has  this  temper;  he 
has  the  human  good -will;  he  has  done  his  work  of 
investigation  with  unmatched  thoroughness.  From 
lifelong  study  and  travel  his  grasp  of  "world  politics" 
long  since  put  him  easily  in  the  first  rank  of  publicists. 
He  has  travelled  widely  enough  and  intelligently 
enough  to  apply  the  comparative  method  in  making 


236  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

up  a  human  document.  If  he  is  discussing  American 
manners  or  morals,  his  judgment  means  something 
because  he  has  watched  manners  and  morals  in 
many  countries.  If  he  deals  with  our  asserted  pas- 
sion for  dollars,  he  has  had  experience  enough 
among  many  people  to  apply  some  intelligent  test 
to  the  criticism.  It  is  this  large  mastery  of  con- 
temporary political  and  social  experience  which 
makes  Mr.  Bryce,  not  only  superior  to  de  Tocque- 
ville,  but  clearly  our  greatest  critic. 

It  is  not  only  that  the  author  of  "The  American 
Commonwealth"  paid  many  visits  to  this  country, 
it  is  also  because  here  and  in  England  he  kept  in  the 
closest  intellectual  touch  with  those  Americans  who 
were  competent  and  glad  to  assist  him.  His  in- 
quiries were  so  definite  and  so  penetrating;  they  so 
touched  the  "live-wire"  issues  of  the  time,  that  it 
was  an  honor  and  intellectual  pleasure  to  get  in- 
formation for  him.  One  of  his  American  friends 
and  helpers  said,  "We  never  get  such  good  talk 
about  our  own  home  problems  as  when  Mr.  Bryce 
is  present  to  ask  questions."  This  gentlemanly 
temper,  this  sympathy  and  searching  observation, 
are  not  absent  in  a  single  critic  who  ranks  with 
Lyell,  de  Tocqueville,  Chevalier,  and  Bryce. 

This  is  not  a  ranking  of  critics  according  to  their 
good  opinion  of  this  country.  The  weakest  and 
untruest  things  about  us  are  often  the  hasty  and  in- 
discriminate praises.  Lyell,  Chevalier,  de  Tocque- 
ville, have  admonitions  enough,  but  they  so  stand  out 


OUR    GREATEST    CRITIC  237 

on  a  background  of  proper  information  and  human 
good-will  that  only  the  pettiest  provincialism  will 
take  offence.  No  man  has  given  more  final  tests  of 
sincerity  in  his  democratic  sympathies  than  Mr. 
Bryce.  His  attitude  toward  Irish  Home  Rule  and 
even  more  the  moral  bravery  he  showed  during  the 
Boer  War  (whatever  the  merits  of  that  struggle 
may  have  been)  are  even  better  proofs  than  passages 
like  this:  "When  the  humbler  classes  have  differed 
in  opinion  from  the  higher,  they  have  often  proved 
by  the  event  to  have  been  right  and  their  so-called 
betters  wrong."  But  to  this  inborn  spirit  of  demo- 
cratic good-fellowship  and  breeding,  must  be  added 
a  training  for  his  task  that  few  men  living  or  dead 
have  received.  We  have  to  think  of  "  The  American 
Commonwealth"  not  as  a  study  finished  in  1887, 
but,  through  its  revisions  and  later  letters,  as  the 
sustained  and  coherent  judgment  of  more  than  thirty 
years.  He  is  not  in  the  least  a  mere  bookworm. 
His  academic  distinction  was  eminent,  but  as  a  globe 
trotter  he  was  as  intelligently  the  student  as  in  writing 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  It  was  these  large  studies, 
together  with  his  knowledge  of  comparative  politics 
and  his  arduous  labor  as  a  practical  politician,  that 
have  given  him  a  supreme  fitness  to  report  upon  the 
political  structure  and  social  spirit  of  this  country. 
Not  the  least  among  the  services  of  this  monu- 
mental work  is,  that  hundreds  of  Europeans  read  it 
as  a  preparation  for  their  coming  to  this  country. 
I  once  heard  from  a  foreign  scholar  this  admirable 


238  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

word :  "  To  read  Bryce  before  you  leave  home,  and 
then,  with  your  own  notes  and  memories,  to  read  it 
again  when  you  return,  is  the  surest  way  to  know 
America  and  to  know  it  at  its  best."  I  have  also 
heard  one  of  our  own  scholars  say  that  "he  knew  no 
single  study  that  so  effectively  helped  an  American 
to  know  his  own  country  as  he  ought  to  know  it,  as 
'The  American  Commonwealth.'"  1 

As  one  looks  back  upon  the  universal  touchiness 
under  foreign  comment,  it  is  the  more  surprising 
that  scarcely  a  protest  has  been  raised  against  Bryce's 
strictures.  In  spite  of  the  uniform  cordiality  and 
appreciation,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  plain  speaking 
that  would  have  aroused  resentment  even  a  genera- 
tion before  the  work  appeared.  One  angry  verbal 
protest  I  do  remember:  that  "Bryce  must  have  been 
blind  in  at  least  one  eye  to  say  that  'neither  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  with  their  dependent  ranges,  nor 
the  Sierra  Nevada,  can  be  compared  for  variety  of 
grandeur  and  beauty  with  the  Alps.'"  Gold  win 
Smith  says  this  more  strongly  still  and  it  is  probably 
true.  But  Bryce  refers  also  to  our  cities:  "Their 
monotony  haunts  one  like  a  nightmare."  He  makes 
a  few  exceptions,  but  says : 2  — 

"In  all,  the  same  shops,  arranged  on  the  same  plan,  the 
same  Chinese  laundries,  with  Li  Kow  visible  through  the  win- 
dow, the  same  ice-cream  stores,  the  same  large  hotels  with  seedy 

1  It  is  perhaps  a  trivial  warning,  but  I  have  found  that  the 
average  person  is  more  likely  to  read  both  volumes  if  he  begins 
with  Part  IV  of  the  second  volume. 

J  "The  American  Commonwealth,"  Vol.  II,  p.  670. 


OUR    GREATEST    CRITIC  239 

men  hovering  about  in  the  dreary  entrance-hall,  the  same 
street-cars  passing  to  and  fro,  with  passengers  clinging  to  the 
door-step." 

"Travel  where  you  will,  you  feel  that  what  you  have  found 
in  one  place,  that  you  will  find  in  another.  The  thing  which 
hath  been,  will  be :  you  can  no  more  escape  from  it  than  you 
can  quit  the  land  to  live  in  the  sea."  l 

Nor  is  this  "monotony"  an  affair  alone  of  ex- 
ternals. It  appears  in  our  mental  habits,  where  it 
may  be  merely  tiresome,  or  dangerous  if  it  express 
itself  in  our  political  thinking.  Like  de  Tocqueville, 
Bryce  fears  our  lack  of  independence  in  politics; 
that  there  are  "so  few  independent  schools  of 
opinion."  "The  structure  of  the  party  discipline 
leaves  little  freedom  of  individual  thought  or  action 
to  the  member  of  the  legislature."  It  is  our  "weak 
point"  that  free  and  unbiassed  political  opinion  finds 
such  difficulty  in  "bringing  itself  to  bear  upon  those 
who  govern  either  as  legislators  or  executive  officers."2 
Outside  the  line  of  party  interests,  there  may  be  the 
bravest  shoutings  and  display  of  intellectual  courage, 
as  if  to  call  off  the  attention  from  vital  issues.  So 
vigorous  a  party  Republican  as  Congressman  Little- 
field  is  reported  recently  as  saying,  "If  there  is 
anything  more  cowardly  than  one  Congressman,  it 
is  two  Congressmen:"  — 

"It  is  a  humiliating  fact  that  the  House  of  Representatives 
is  the  most  cowardly  political  body  in  the  United  States.  It  is 
not  even  equal  to  the  ordinary  State  Legislature.  The  ordi- 

1  "The  American  Commonwealth,"  Vol.  II,  p.  674. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  288. 


240  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

nary  congressman,  when  he  is  elected,  gets  the  notion  that  there 
is  a  career  before  him.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  get  any  mem- 
ber of  Congress  to  vote  against  any  proposition  that  seems  to 
imperil  his  chances  of  return."  1 

This  is  what  Mr.  Bryce  points  out.  We  have  seen 
the  same  criticism  in  de  Tocqueville.  We  shall  see 
it  later  in  other  form  in  Munsterberg  and  more 
powerfully  still  in  Ostrogorski. 

Mr.  Bryce  also  speaks  of  the  "  commonness  of  mind 
and  tone,  a  want  of  dignity  and  elevation  in  and 
about  the  conduct  of  public  affairs,  an  insensibility 
to  the  nobler  aspects  and  finer  responsibilities  of 
national  life."  This  is  also  true;  but  that  so  great 
a  multitude  of  American  readers  should  accept  these 
and  other  strictures  while  showering  praises  on  the 
author's  head,  is  a  new  and  extremely  hopeful 
fact. 

In  the  half  century  which  separates  de  Tocqueville 
from  Bryce,  no  one  had  attempted  to  cope  with  the 
whole  theory  and  practice  of  our  political  life,  as 
well  as  to  enter  minutely  into  questions  of  manners, 
habits,  and  ideas.  Mr.  Bryce  does  this  in  his  first 
edition  of  1888,  more  completely  in  the  third  edition 
and  in  the  letters  published  in  1905,  in  which  he 
reviews  the  changes  observable  in  the  United  States 
between  his  first  visit  in  1870  and  that  of  1905*  No 
one  of  our  critics  has  given  any  such  extensive  and 

1  Reported  from  address  before  the  Providence,  R.I.,  Com- 
mercial Club,  April  23,  1907. 

1  Outlook,  March  and  April,  1905. 


OUR   GREATEST   CRITIC  24! 

intensive  study  of  political  structure  in  this  country. 
No  one  has  entered  more  intimately  into  the  whole 
spiritual  life  of  the  nation.  That  the  net  judgment 
of  this  profound  study  should  be  (I  cannot  help  using 
the  word)  so  doggedly  hopeful;  that  it  should  be 
informed  by  a  certain  gaiety  of  good  cheer  and  con- 
fidence that  all  is  to  turn  out  well  with  us  in  the 
United  States,  has  of  course  much  to  do  with  the 
supreme  rank  accorded  to  Mr.  Bryce's  books.  The 
serenity  of  the  author's  optimism  falls  in  with  that 
most  persistent  trait  of  the  American  character, 
hopefulness.  Scarcely  a  critic  fails  to  note  this 
insistent  American  characteristic.  Mr.  Bryce  not 
only  gives  voice  to  this,  but  he  adduces  an  ordered 
host  of  reasons  which  he  believes  justifies  our  op- 
timism. In  the  Introduction  he  writes  of  the  doubt- 
ers who  fail  "to  realize  the  existence  in  the  American 
people  of  a  reserve  of  force  and  patriotism  more  than 
sufficient  to  sweep  away  all  the  evils  which  are  now 
tolerated,  and  to  make  the  politics  of  the  country 
worthy  of  its  material  grandeur  and  of  the  private 
virtues  of  its  inhabitants.  America  excites  an 
admiration  which  must  be  felt  on  the  spot  to  be 
understood.  The  hopefulness  of  her  people  com- 
municates itself  to  one  who  moves  among  them,  and 
makes  him  perceive  that  the  graver  faults  of  politics 
may  be  far  less  dangerous  there  than  they  would  be 
in  Europe.  A  hundred  times  in  writing  this  book 
have  I  been  disheartened  by  the  facts  I  was  stating ; 
a  hundred  times  has  the  recollection  of  the  abounding 


242  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

strength  and  vitality  of  the  nation  chased  away  these 
tremors."  1 

I  was  once  asked  by  an  English  friend,  much  in  this 
country,  if  there  were  any  way  in  which  this  obstinate 
residuum  of  American  optimism  could  be  explained. 

"You  have  men  who  make  a  bluff  at  pessimism.  They 
talk  fiercely  against  all  sorts  of  things  in  their  own  country, 
but  they  always  surprise  you  finally  by  adding  'Still  it's  all 
coming  out  right  in  the  end.'  Nothing  impresses  me  in  the 
United  States  more  than  this  characteristic.  But  I  do  not 
understand  it,  nor  does  Mr.  Bryce  satisfy  me.  If  your  politics 
are  as  bad  as  he  implies  and  as  most  of  you  say  they  are ;  if 
so  much  of  your  business  is  polluted,  as  your  best  witnesses 
insist,  why  does  every  discussion  among  you  have  the  same 
refrain,  'Yes,  it's  bad,  but  it's  sure  to  turn  out  all  right  in  the 
end'?" 

This  seems  to  me  to  touch  the  one  critical  weak- 
ness in  Mr.  Bryce's  volumes.  Again  and  again  he 
brings  the  reader  to  a  yawning  gulf  of  perplexities. 
We  are  allowed  to  take  one  frightened  glimpse 
into  the  depths,  only  to  be  hurried  instantly  back  on 
to  high  safe  ground.  Nothing  is  more  momentous 
in  the  national  life  than  the  character  and  influence 
of  large  cities.  Yet  our  political  method  appears 
to  have  failed  in  managing  these  moulding  centres 
in  our  common  life.  The  main  ground  of  Mr. 
Bryce's  optimism  about  us  is  our  inveterate,  under- 
lying hopefulness. 

From  a  good  many  wise  people,  I  have  tried  to  get 

1  "The  American  Commonwealth,"  Vol.  I,  p.  10. 


OUR   GREATEST   CRITIC  243 

some  answer  to  this  question,  Does  the  evidence  in 
Mr.  Bryce's  books  justify  his  optimism  ? 1 

One  is  quick  to  note  that  the  answers  take  the 
form  of  religious  faith  rather  than  of  a  reasoned 
conviction  that  appeals  to  definite  proofs.  One  of 
our  first-rate  scholars  of  American  politics  tells  me, 
"It  is  very  discouraging  that  Pennsylvania,  after 
the  moral  rousing  of  last  year,  should  apparently 
sink  back  helpless  under  the  same  contemptible 
party  tyranny.  But,"  he  hastens  to  add,  "I  am 
sure  it  will  all  come  out  right."  Yes,  most  of  us 
believe  that,  but  do  the  volumes  of  Mr.  Bryce  con- 
tain the  evidences  of  these  things  not  seen? 

Thirty-five  years  after  his  first  coming,  Mr.  Bryce 
reviewed  the  most  important  changes  observable 
in  the  United  States  since  1870.  His  summary  is 
the  more  remarkable  because  he  had  seen  much  of 
the  "Shame  of  Cities"  as  it  had  been  reported  by 
men  like  Lincoln  Steffens.  Most  of  this  relentless 
inquisition  into  our  political  and  business  life  was  as 
truthfully  as  it  was  ably  done.  In  spite  of  the  direct 
personal  character  of  the  evidence,  no  important 
part  of  it  has  been  in  the  least  shaken  by  those  under 
fire.  Everywhere  one  heard  angry  and  scornful 
denial  in  private.  I  heard  a  United  States  Senator 
say,  "It's  sewer-water,  —  mere  sewer-water,  not 
fit  for  a  human  being  to  touch."  But  if  it  is  false, 

1  In  the  final  chapters  on  Progress,  an  attempt  is  made  to  add 
evidence  on  this  point  from  authentic  changes  which  our  critics 
enable  us  to  see  and  measure  through  the  century. 


244  As   OTHERS   SEE  US 

why  not  answer  it,  that  the  people  may  have  some 
authentic  statement?  "Well,"  was  the  reply,  "there 
is,  of  course,  a  lot  of  unpleasant  facts  so  mixed  up 
with  these  charges  as  to  make  it  very  difficult  to  re- 
ply." Yes,  "such  a  lot  of  unpleasant  facts"  which 
no  one  dared  to  face  in  open  public  discussion. 
They  were  facts  which  did  this  service:  they  laid 
bare  the  whole  organized  intimacy  between  privi- 
leged business  and  politics.  We  had  all  been  taught 
that  our  political  corruption  was  in  some  dark  way 
peculiar  to  large  cities.  Investigation  during  the 
last  seven  or  eight  years  has  destroyed  that  illusion. 
The  large  city  merely  gave  concentrated  and  dramatic 
expression  to  evils  that  inhere  in  large  business 
activities  that  depend  on  legislative  and  other  favors. 
Public  service  corporations  with  affiliated  busi- 
nesses like  mines  and  other  primary  natural  resources 
have  set  the  pace  in  this  subjection  of  the  politician 
to  private  rather  than  public  interests.  That  these 
powers  should  have  become  in  recent  years  so 
centred  in  speculative  markets;  that  business  dis- 
tinction should  be  now  largely  tested  by  capacity 
to  manipulate  securities;  that  the  most  precious 
wealth-resources  should  be  like  the  stake  in  a 
gambler's  game,  are  dangers  that  only  selfish  interest 
or  mental  dulness  now  fails  to  recognize.  "Bad 
politics"  follows  and  reflects  the  deeper  evils  of  a 
grossly  unfair  competitive  business ;  unfair  in  the 
sense  that  our  excessive  inequalities  of  wealth  are 
known  to  be  due  largely  to  special  favors  or  outright 


OUR   GREATEST   CRITIC  245 

theft  of  public  domain  in  mining,  grazing,  and 
lumbering.  An  excessive  tariff  is  behind  specific 
large  fortunes  "in  iron."  The  tariff,  together  with 
rebates,  has  made  several  Steel  Kings.  Great 
mastery  in  the  securing  of  rebates  has  made  other 
vast  fortunes.  With  a  few  distinct  exceptions,  this 
whole  natural  history  of  multimillionnairedom  is  a 
story,  no  line  of  which  can  be  told  apart  from  a 
political  corruption  which  these  businesses  started. 
This  corruption  did  not  begin  with  the  blackmailer 
or  the  people.  These  are  developed  as  later  and 
consequent  evils. 

Better  than  with  oil,  mines,  lumber,  cattle,  or 
steel,  railway  transportation  is  that  through  which 
we  may  best  see  this  evil.  Dr.  Albert  Shaw  is  not 
an  alarmist,  neither  is  he  a  general  scold.  He  knows 
about  our  railroads.  Without  wishing  to  do  them 
injury,  here  are  his  deliberate  opinions  expressed 
in  his  Review  of  Reviews :  — 

"The  mismanagement  of  insurance  companies  has  been  a 
mere  passing  trifle  when  compared  with  the  mismanagement 
of  American  railroad  interests. 

"We  have  a  small  and  select  population  of  plutocrats  who 
control  our  railroads  and  have  somehow  managed  to  put  into 
their  private  pockets  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  millions 
of  dollars  through  their  ability  to  skim  the  cream  off  the 
country's  prosperity. 

"Many  of  those  in  control  'have  juggled  with  securities, 
have  played  the  stock-market  up  and  down,  have  played  tricks 
with  their  dividend  policies,  have  so  falsified  their  bookkeeping 
as  to  conceal  surpluses,  and  have  virtually  confiscated  the 


246  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

property  of  the  confiding  stockholders  by  the  use  they  have 
made  of  the  proxies  which  they  themselves  have  solicited 
through  the  mails  at  the  stockholders'  expense.'  They  'have 
got  control  of  the  American  railroad  system,  have  bled  it  un- 
mercifully for  their  own  benefit,  and  the  result  is  that  it  no 
longer  serves  the  practical  purposes  for  which  railroads 
exist.'" 

Though  himself  seeing  great  objection  to  govern- 
ment management  of  railroads,  he  concludes :  — 

"Whatever  may  be  the  objections  to  government  owner- 
ship —  and  those  objections  are  very  great  —  it  would  be 
better  than  the  indefinite  continuance  of  an  irresponsible  and 
uncontrolled  private  management  in  the  interest  of  a  ring  of 
plutocrats." 

That  judgment  is  caustic,  but  it  is  not  exaggerated. 
If  we  add  to  it,  that  the  partnership  between  the  rail- 
road and  iron,  oil,  lumber,  cattle,  mines,  etc.,  has 
been  through  local  and  federal  legislation  in  such 
dark  and  covered  ways  as  to  infect  the  very  sources 
of  our  political  life,  we  have  merely  a  further  and 
complete  statement  of  the  fact.  This  digression  is 
only  to  make  the  question  a  little  more  intelligent: 
Does  Mr.  Bryce  take  this  evil  thing  fully  and  fairly 
into  account?  Seeing  it  all,  has  the  bravery  of  his 
optimism  good  warrant? 

One  cannot  answer  it  with  satisfaction,  because 
it  is  uncertain  how  far  he  is  looking  to  the  future 
rather  than  to  the  present.  He  seems  to  be  saying, 
as  he  faces  the  evil,  "  Ugly  as  it  is,  you  will  throw  it 
off.  Your  buoyancy,  health,  and  confidence  will 
cut  out  that  rottenness  as  we  in  England  cut  out  our 


OUR   GREATEST   CRITIC  247 

'rotten  boroughs'  and  recognized  debaucheries  that 
were  blacker  than  America  ever  knew." 

For  this  faith  he  gives  two  forceful  reasons.  First, 
the  strategic  advantage  which  public  opinion  has  in 
this  country.  As  compared  to  other  countries,  he 
finds  its  peculiarity  in  this,  that  our  public  opinion 
"stands  above  the  parties,  being  cooler  and  larger 
minded  than  they  are;  it  awes  party  leaders  and 
holds  in  check  party  organizations.  No  one  openly 
ventures  to  resist  it.  It  determines  the  direction 
and  the  character  of  national  policy.  It  is  the  prod- 
uct of  a  greater  number  of  minds  than  in  any  other 
country,  and  it  is  more  indisputably  sovereign.  It 
is  the  central  point  of  the  whole  American  policy. 
To  describe  it,  that  is,  to  sketch  the  leading  political 
ideas,  habits,  and  tendencies  of  the  American  people, 
and  show  how  they  express  themselves  in  action,  is  the 
most  difficult  and  also  the  most  vital  part  of  my  task." 

This  is  a  preliminary  word  in  his  Introduction  in 
explanation  of  the  detailed  study  of  public  opinion 
in  several  later  chapters.1 

In  noting  the  powers  of  the  President,  he  says, 
"Nowhere  is  the  rule  of  public  opinion  so  complete 
as  in  America,  nor  so  direct,  that  is  to  say,  so  inde- 
pendent of  the  ordinary  machinery  of  government."  2 

The  really  great  changes  since  Bryce's  first  edition 
strengthen  every  opinion  he  has  expressed  on  this 
point.  De  Tocqueville  finds  the  President  almost  a 

1  Vol.  II,  Part  IV. 

*  "The  American  Commonwealth,"  Vol.  I,  p.  63. 


248  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

weakling  in  using  public  opinion.  Ten  years  after 
de  Tocqueville,  the  French  Ambassador  de  Bacourt 
wrote  his  sister,  "The  State  minds  its  own  business 
so  much  that  I  have  nothing  to  do."  Mr.  Bryce 
first  writes :  — 

"An  American  may,  through  a  long  life,  never  be  reminded 
of  the  Federal  Government  except  when  he  votes  at  Presi- 
dential and  Congressional  elections,  lodges  a  complaint  against 
the  Post -Office,  and  opens  his  trunk  for  a  Custom-House  offi- 
cer on  the  pier  at  New  York  when  he  returns  from  a  tour  of 
Europe." 

As  he  comes  now  to  a  wide-armed  welcome  as 
ambassador,  he  finds 

"The  Federal  power  in  some  of  the  most  ordinary  minutiae 
of  daily  life  —  when  he  buys  a  pound  of  meat,  goes  to  the  drug- 
gist for  medicine,  buys  coffee  at  the  corner  grocery,  or  secures 
a  railroad  ticket." 

He  finds  the  immense  hopefulness  of  public  opinion 
here  to  be  hi  the  fact  that  its  directive  power  is  more 
and  more  consciously  active  in  the  entire  body  of 
the  people. 

President  Woodrow  Wilson  at  Columbia  University 
says  of  this  extraordinary  growth  that  — 

"In  nothing  has  it  grown  more  than  in  the  development  of 
the  presidency.  His  cabinet  becomes  more  and  more  de- 
pendent upon  him ;  upon  his  single  office,  more  and  more  the 
centre  of  the  vital  forces  of  opinion  and  political  initiative. 

"The  President  alone  is  elected  by  the  people  as  a  whole, 
has  no  local  constituency,  speaks  for  no  special  interest.  If 
he  truly  interpret  the  national  thought  and  boldly  enough 
insist  upon  it,  he  is  irresistible." 


OUR   GREATEST   CRITIC  249 

Professor  Munsterberg  goes  so  far  in  agreement 
with  Mr.  Bryce  as  to  say  that  "the  parties  with  all 
their  paraphernalia  are  merely  the  lower  house  of  the 
nation,  while  Public  Opinion  is  the  upper  house."  He 
says  again,  "Most  of  all,  it  must  be  insisted  that 
public  opinion  is  all  the  time  following  up  these 
excrescences  on  party  life,  and  that  public  opinion 
presses  forward  year  by  year  at  an  absolutely  sure 
pace." 

In  no  way  has  Mr.  Bryce  more  helped  us  than  in 
showing  the  folly  of  that  long  list  of  critics  who  glee- 
fully traced  our  frailties  to  the  kind  of  government 
we  had  chosen.  I  tried  to  keep  a  list  of  the  specific 
degeneracies  that  writers  connected  with  our  form 
of  government.  We  had  set  up  as  a  Republic  and 
therefore  were  becoming  "godless,"  "irreverent," 
"mannerless,"  "silent,"  "monotonous,"  "super- 
sensitive."  We  were  "flighty"  and  "headstrong," 
"miserly  in  some  directions  and  wasteful  in  others," 
all  because  we  had  cut  loose  from  aristocracies. 
That  five  of  our  States  repudiated  their  debts,  or 
long  threatened  to  do  so,  was  an  "inevitable  result  of 
democracy."  Poletika  gives  his  reasons  why  our 
inordinate  boasting  follows  from  our  type  of  govern- 
ment.1 As  he  says,  the  effect  of  democracy  is  "to 
make  men  turbulent  citizens,  abandoned  Chris- 
tians, inconstant  husbands,  and  treacherous  friends." 
Captain  Marryat  says,  "Slander  and  detraction  are 
the  inseparable  evils  of  a  democracy."  2 

1  "Aperju,"  p.  155.  2  "Diary,"  Vol.  I,  p.  17. 


AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

We  are  shown  how  inevitable  it  is  that  we  should 
consume  such  enormous  quantities  of  cheap  liquor, 
"because  we  are  a  democracy."  Without  the  influ- 
ence of  aristocracy,  we  cannot  produce  art  or  litera- 
ture. 

Of  all  this  shallowness  Mr.  Bryce  makes  short 
work.  "One  of  the  most  polished  and  aristocratic 
societies  in  Europe  has  for  two  centuries  been  that 
of  Vienna;  yet  what  society  could  have  been  in- 
tellectually duller  or  less  productive?"  He  says 
these  theorizers  about  democracy  are  like  Daniel 
giving  us  a  dream  and  his  own  interpretation  of  it.1 

"Few  mistakes  are  more  common  than  that  of  exaggerating 
the  influence  of  forms  of  government.  As  there  are  historians 
and  politicians  who,  when  they  come  across  a  trait  of  national 
character  for  which  no  obvious  explanation  presents  itself,  set 
it  down  to  'race,'  so  there  are  writers  and  speakers  who,  too 
indolent  to  examine  the  whole  facts  of  the  case,  or  too  ill- 
trained  to  feel  the  need  of  such  examination,  pounce  upon  the 
political  institutions  of  a  country  as  the  easiest  way  to  account 
for  its  social  and  intellectual,  perhaps  even  for  its  moral  and 
religious  peculiarities."  2 

"Let  any  one  study  the  portrait  of  the  democratic  man  and 
democratic  city  which  the  first  and  greatest  of  all  hostile  critics 
of  democracy  has  left  us,  and  compare  it  with  the  very  different 
descriptions  of  life  and  culture  under  a  popular  government 
in  which  European  speculation  has  deported  itself  since  de 

1  Professor  Freeman  writes:     "It  is  absurd  to  infer  that  a 
democratic  federal  form  of  government  has  a  necessary  and  special 
tendency  to  corruption,  when  it  is  certain  that  corruption  has  been 
and  is  just  as  rife  under  governments  of  other  kinds."  —  "Im- 
pressions of  the  United  States,"  p.  123. 

2  "The  American  Commonwealth,"  Vol.  II,  p.  613, 


OUR   GREATEST   CRITIC  251 

Tocqueville's  time.  He  will  find  each  theory  plausible  in  the 
abstract,  and  each  equally  unlike  the  facts  which  contemporary 
America  sets  before  us." 

Mr.  Bryce's  second  source  of  confidence  is  in  the 
character  of  our  education  which  works  through  this 
public  opinion.  More  than  twenty  years  ago  he 
wrote  of  the  new  forms  of  education  in  the  United 
States,  "  as  powerfully  affecting  politics,  the  develop- 
ment not  only  of  literary,  scientific,  and  historical 
studies,  but  in  particular  of  a  new  school  of  publi- 
cists, who  discuss  constitutional  and  economic 
questions  in  a  philosophic  spirit;  closer  intellectual 
relationship  with  Europe,  and  particularly  with 
England  and  Germany;  increased  interest  of  the 
best  class  of  citizens  in  politics;  improved  literary 
quality  of  the  newspapers  and  the  periodicals." 
In  1905  he  turns  with  still  greater  reliance  to  these 
educational  hopes.  His  running  comparison  be- 
tween our  best  and  the  best  in  Europe  adds  interest 
to  his  estimate. 

"There  has  been  within  these  last  thirty -five  years  a 
development  of  the  higher  education  in  the  United  States 
perhaps  without  a  parallel  in  the  world. 

"The  interest  taken  in  the  constitutional  topics  and  eco- 
nomic questions,  indeed  in  everything  that  belongs  to  the 
sphere  of  political  science,  is  as  great  as  it  is  in  Germany  or 
France,  and  greater  than  in  Britain. 

"America  has  now  not  less  than  fifteen  or  perhaps  even 
twenty  seats  of  learning  fit  to  be  ranked  beside  the  universities 
of  Germany,  France,  and  England  as  respects  the  complete- 
ness of  the  instruction  which  they  provide  and  the  thorough- 
ness at  which  they  aim. 


252  AS   OTHERS   SEE  US 

"Even  more  noticeable  is  the  amplitude  of  the  provision 
now  made  for  the  study  of  natural  sciences,  and  of  those  arts 
in  which  science  is  applied  to  practical  ends.  In  this  respect 
the  United  States  has  gone  ahead  of  Great  Britain."  l 

That  the  remaining  shadows  neither  discourage  nor 
seriously  alarm  him  is  the  message  for  which  we  have 
most  to  thank  this  writer.  That  his  hopes  for  us  are 
based  upon  the  strengthening  and  enriching  of  our 
education  as  it  acts  upon  public  opinion  brings  this 
cheer;  a  steadying  and  informing  education  is  a 
remedy  and  a  responsibility  over  which  we  have 
control.  It  is  the  distinction  of  Mr.  Bryce  to  have 
shown  better  than  any  of  our  critics  how  direct  a 
bearing  this  educated  opinion  has  upon  every  des- 
tiny that  is  to  constitute  the  enduring  greatness  of 
our  common  country. 

1  "America  Revisited,"  Otttlook,  March,  1905. 

These  words  too  are  reassuring:  "The  notion  which  has  ob- 
tained currency  in  Europe  that  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
conscious  that  they  have  become  a  great  World  Power,  are  plan- 
ning, and  preparing  to  build  up,  a  vast  dominion  over  subject 
States  or  tribes  seems  ludicrous  to  any  one  who  keeps  his  ears  and 
eyes  open  in  the  country." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

A  PHILOSOPHER  AS  MEDIATOR 

To  Professor  Hugo  Miinsterberg  we  are  indebted 
for  two  books,  one  written  for  our  instruction,  one 
for  the  instruction  of  Germany.  Each  country  is 
overburdened  with  prejudices  against  the  other.  To 
clear  the  common  air  of  these  absurdities,  to  help 
each  to  understand  the  other,  to  encourage  and 
enlighten  friendly  relations  between  Germany  and 
the  United  States,  is  the  generous  purpose  of  these 
complementary  studies. 

This  scholar  has  been  so  many  years  in  our 
country,  he  has  travelled  so  widely,  his  activities 
are  so  variously  related,  as  to  give  him  skill  as 
mediator  and  interpreter. 

After  seven  years'  teaching  in  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, he  published  "American  Traits,"  in  which  the 
direct  appeal  is  to  us  in  America.  Hundreds  of 
students  returning  year  by  year  from  German  uni- 
versities learn  something  of  the  deeper  life  of  that 
country,  but  the  "average  American  ignorance"  is 
not  only  dense  but  often  increased  by  hurried  trips 
through  German  territory.  That  they  are  frowsy, 
unpractical,  and  given  to  cloudy  philosophies,  that 
253 


254  AS    OTHERS    SEE   US 

their  food  swims  in  grease,  that  their  pompous  offi- 
cials are  perpetually  interfering  in  your  private 
affairs,  is  a  mental  picture  very  common  in  this 
country.  The  Americans'  complaint  of  this  petty 
interference  I  have  heard  oftener  than  any  other 
criticism.  We  turn  to  Professor  Miinsterberg  to 
find  him  critical  of  this  same  evil  in  the  United  States. 
He  complains  of  our  "restrictions  and  prohibitions 
and  a  continuous  meddling  with  private  affairs." 
Our  policemen  do  not  come  in  to  insist  that  the 
heating  arrangements  should  be  thus  or  so;  they 
do  not  get  serious  and  bureaucratic  over  the  baby 
carriage,  or  over  the  way  you  carry  a  cane  in  the 
street;  but  we  have  our  petty  legal  interferences 
quite  as  intolerable  to  Germans.  We  are  used  to 
these  and  do  not  notice  them. 

To  illustrate  these  international  densities,  the 
author  writes :  — 

"An  American  who  has  never  been  abroad  invited  me,  the 
other  day,  to  a  German  luncheon.  I  had  to  work  my  way 
through  a  series  of  so-called  German  dishes,  which  I  had 
never  tasted  or  smelled  before;  and  when  finally  imported 
sauer-kraut  appeared,  and  I  had  to  confess  that  I  had  never 
tried  it  in  my  life  and  had  never  seen  any  one  else  eating  it, 
my  host  assured  me  that  I  did  not  know  anything  about 
Germany:  it  was  the  favorite  dish  of  every  Prussian.  The 
habits  of  the  Prussian  sauer-kraut  eater  are  well  known.  He 
goes  shabbily  dressed,  never  takes  a  bath,  drinks  beer  at  his 
breakfast,  plays  skat,  smokes  a  long  pipe,  wears  spectacles, 
reads  books  from  dirty  loan  libraries,  is  rude  to  the  lower 
classes  and  slavishly  servile  to  the  higher,  is  innocent  of  the 


A    PHILOSOPHER    AS    MEDIATOR  255 

slightest  attempt  at  good  form  in  society,  considering  it  as  his 
object  in  life  to  obey  the  policeman,  to  fill  blanks  with  bureau- 
cratic red  tape,  and  to  get  a  title  in  front  of  his  name." 

From  the  German  side :  — 

"How  does  the  Yankee  look  in  the  imagination  of  my 
countrymen?  In  the  German  language  the  adjective  'Amer- 
ican' is  usually  connected  with  but  three  things.  The  Ger- 
mans speak  of  American  stoves  and  mean  a  kind  of  stove 
which  I  have  never  seen  in  this  country;  they  speak  of  Ameri- 
can duels,  and  mean  an  absurd  sort  of  duel  which  was  certainly 
never  fought  on  this  continent;  and  finally,  they  speak  of 
American  humbug,  and  mean  by  it  that  kind  of  humbug  which 
flourishes  in  Berlin  just  as  in  Chicago.  But  the  American  man 
is  of  course  very  well  known.  He  is  a  haggard  creature,  with 
vulgar  tastes  and  brutal  manners,  who  drinks  whiskey  and 
chews  tobacco,  spits,  fights,  puts  his  feet  on  the  table,  and 
habitually  rushes  along  in  wild  haste,  absorbed  by  a  greedy 
desire  for  the  dollars  of  his  neighbors.  He  does  not  care  for 
education  or  art,  for  the  public  welfare  or  for  justice,  except 
so  far  as  they  mean  money  to  him."  * 

The  American  thinks  the  German  "servile,  reac- 
tionary, narrow  minded,"  while  the  German  believes 
the  American  to  be  "greedy,  vulgar,  brutal,  and  cor- 
rupt." The  high  task  of  the  author  is  to  make  both 
peoples  ashamed  of  this  petty  and  philistine  judg- 
ment. By  patient  instruction  he  tries  to  scatter 
these  devils  of  misunderstanding  by  turning  on  the 
light. 

His  appreciation  and  praise  of  all  that  is  best 
in  our  life  and  institutions  is  found  in  "The 

1  "American  Traits,"  pp.  7,  8,  and  9. 


256  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

Americans."  *  As  it  is  addressed  wholly  to  Germany, 
it  lies  largely  outside  the  present  purpose.  There 
are,  however,  few  Americans  who  cannot  find  instruc- 
tion in  every  chapter.  These  contain  some  startling 
statements,  the  accuracy  of  which  is  very  wide  open 
to  criticism.  They  are  often  statements,  however, 
flatteringly  in  our  favor.  They  are  doubtless  meant 
to  be  strong  in  order  to  reach  the  thick-skinned 
prepossessions  against  us  in  the  Fatherland.  The 
author,  moreover,  frankly  defends  himself  for  touch- 
ing lightly  upon  our  faults  and  idealizing  many  of 
our  virtues,  because  he  addresses  his  message  to 
Germany.  He  admits  that  the  larger  book  is  a 
"study  of  the  Americans  as  the  best  of  them  are  and 
as  the  others  should  wish  to  be."  This  is,  of  course, 
only  part  of  the  picture,  but  it  is  for  the  author's 
purpose  the  truer  and  more  essential  part.  The 
man  who  uniformly  takes  his  fellows  at  their  best 
rather  than  at  their  worst  is  not  only  a  wiser  but  a 
far  more  useful  citizen.  The  really  great  names  on 
our  roll  of  honor  from  Washington  to  Lincoln,  with 
a  kind  of  divine  obstinacy,  took  their  fellow-country- 
men at  their  best.  The  scamps  and  the  half  scamps, 
who  have  lowered  life  among  us,  as  uniformly  took 
men  at  their  worst.  To  lift  the  discussion  and  the 
estimate  of  foreign  peoples  so  that  they  can  be  taken 
at  their  best  would  revolutionize  for  good  every 
international  relationship.  Nothing  less  than  this  is 
the  spirit  of  this  author's  bulky  volume. 

1  Published  by  McClure-Phillips,  New  York. 


A   PHILOSOPHER   AS   MEDIATOR  257 

In  the  briefer  study  addressed  to  us,  the  working 
of  our  educational  and  democratic  ideals  is  kept 
chiefly  in  mind.  We  have  the  educator  in  the  critic's 
role.  Before  dwelling  on  strictures  and  warnings, 
let  us  note  the  full  heartiness  of  his  appreciation. 

There  is  first  the  caution  of  the  real  critic  in  dis- 
crimination and  avoiding  that  commonest  pitfall  — 
loose  analogy,  as  when  he  deals  with  the  press  in 
both  countries :  — 

"It  is,  for  instance,  not  at  all  fair  to  compare  the  political 
German  newspapers  with  those  of  America,  and  to  consider 
them  as  mirrors  of  the  nation.  In  Germany  all  the  newspapers 
which  have  a  political  value  are  exclusively  for  the  educated 
classes,  while  in  America  every  paper,  and  especially  those 
which  are  seen  most,  is  written  for  the  masses.  Social  eco- 
nomic conditions  make  that  necessary;  and  it  is,  therefore, 
natural  that  the  American  paper  makes  concessions  to  vul- 
garity which  would  be  impossible  on  the  other  side."  * 

Even  our  hateful  gum  chewing  is  "mere  imper- 
fection of  the  coordinating  centres."  Most  foreign- 
ers have  so  misunderstood  this  domestic  delight  that 
they  have  invariably  mocked  at  it  and  reviled  it,  but 
now  our  "motor  restlessness"  gets  relief,  as  it  does 
in  the  use  of  rocking-chairs,  so  that  this  traduced 
munching  which  an  unscientific  Englishman  says 
"straightway  transforms  a  pretty  girl  into  a  cow 
with  her  cud,"  becomes  dignified  as  the  proper  care 
of  one's  health. 

There    is    quite     incandescent     eulogy    of     the 

1  "American  Traits,"  p.  27. 


258  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

American  girl  which  the  most  ardent  of  our  early 
French  admirers  did  not  surpass :  — 

"He  [the  foreigner]  wanders  in  vain  through  the  colleges 
to  find  the  repulsive  creature  he  expected,  and  the  funny  pic- 
ture of  the  German  comic  papers  changes  slowly  into  an 
enchanting  type  by  Gibson.  And  when  he  has  made  good 
use  of  his  letters  of  introduction,  and  has  met  these  new  crea- 
tures at  closer  range,  has  chatted  with  them  before  cosey  open 
fires,  has  danced  and  bicycled  and  golfed  with  them,  has  seen 
their  clubs  and  meetings  and  charities,  —  he  finds  himself 
discouragingly  word-poor  when  he  endeavors  to  describe, 
with  his  imperfect  English,  the  impression  that  has  been  made 
upon  him ;  he  feels  that  his  vocabulary  is  not  sufficiently  pro- 
vided with  complimentary  epithets.  The  American  woman  is 
clever  and  ingenious  and  witty;  she  is  brilliant  and  lively  and 
strong;  she  is  charming  and  beautiful  and  noble;  she  is 
generous  and  amiable  and  resolute ;  she  is  energetic  and  prac- 
tical, and  yet  idealistic  and  enthusiastic  —  indeed,  what  is 
she  not?"1 

1  "American  Traits,"  p.  130. 

The  fine  glow  of  this  tribute  has  scientific  confirmation  from  a 
source  that  ought  to  give  Mr.  Miinsterberg  a  higher  opinion  of 
Froebel.  A  child,  still  in  the  kindergarten  age,  wrote  her  first 
essay  on  woman.  Her  father,  a  professor  of  natural  science  in  an 
Eastern  university,  had  furnished  the  Darwinian  atmosphere  in 
which  the  little  girl  grew  up.  She  wrote,  "Men  and  women 
spring  from  monkeys.  My  father  says  so;  but  I  says,  women 
sprung  further  away  from  monkeys  than  men  did." 

To  be  impartial  one  should  also  quote  another  qualifying 
opinion  about  a  great  multitude  of  American  women  whom  the 
author  thinks  given  to  fads  and  intellectual  hysterias.  She 
"cannot  discriminate  between  the  superficial  and  the  profound, 
and  without  the  slightest  hesitation  she  effuses,  like  a  bit  of  gossip, 
her  views  on  Greek  art  or  on  Darwinism  between  two  spoonsful 
of  ice  cream." 


A    PHILOSOPHER    AS    MEDIATOR  259 

Of  things  more  serious  than  gum  and  gallantries, 
we  have  an  honest  attempt  so  to  state  the  national 
traits  which  have  excited  most  criticism,  that  they 
can  be  seen  in  their  relations  and  with  some  quali- 
fication. Even  of  our  begrimed  politics  he  says :  — 

"The  same  complex  historical  reasons  which  have  made 
the  party  spoils  system  and  the  boss  system  practically  neces- 
sary forms  of  government  have  often  brought  representatives 
of  very  vulgar  instincts  into  conspicuous  political  places;  but 
that  does  not  mean  that  the  higher  instincts  are  absent,  still 
less  that  the  alarming  accusations  which  fill  the  press  have 
more  than  a  grain  of  truth  in  a  bushel  of  denunciation."  l 

He  then  makes  adroit  distinction  between  policies 
that  are  directly  under  the  heavy  pressure  of  self- 
interest  (tariffs,  trusts,  free  silver,  etc.)  and  those 
that  represent  the  general  political  feeling  and 
responsibility.  It  is  in  this  more  general  sphere 
that  — 

"...  the  American  in  politics  proves  himself  the  purest 
idealist,  the  best  men  come  to  the  front,  the  most  sentimental 
motives  dominate,  and  almost  no  one  dares  to  damage  his 
cause  by  appealing  to  selfish  instincts.  Recent  events  have 
once  more  proved  that  beyond  question.  Whatever  the  sena- 
tors and  sugar  men  may  have  thought  of  it,  the  people  wanted 
the  Cuban  war  for  sentimental  reasons;  and  if  the  uninformed 
continental  papers  maintain  that  the  desire  for  war  had  merely 
selfish  reasons,  they  falsify  history." 

One  other  passage  must  be  given :  — 

"The  high  spirit  of  the  individual  in  politics  repeats  itself 
much  more  plainly  in  private  life,  where  helpfulness  and 

1  Ibid.,  p.  28. 


260  AS    OTHERS    SEE   US 

honesty  seem  to  me  the  most  essential  characteristics  of  the 
American.  Helpfulness  shows  itself  in  charity,  in  hospitality, 
in  projects  for  education  or  for  public  improvements,  or  in 
the  most  trivial  services  of  daily  life;  while  silent  confidence 
in  the  honesty  of  one's  fellow-men  controls  practical  relations 
here  in  a  way  which  is  not  known  in  cautious  Europe,  and 
could  not  have  been  developed  if  that  confidence  were  not 
justified.  Add  to  it  the  American's  gracefulness  and  generos- 
ity, his  elasticity  and  his  frankness,  his  cleanliness  and  his 
chastity,  his  humor  and  his  fairness ;  consider  the  vividness  of 
his  religious  emotion,  his  interest  in  religious  and  metaphysical 
science,  —  in  short,  look  around  everywhere  without  preju- 
dice, and  you  cannot  doubt  that  behind  the  terrifying  mask 
of  the  selfish  realist  breathes  the  idealist,  who  is  controlled  by 
a  belief  in  ethical  values."  l 

After  appreciation  like  this,  it  would  be  a  poor 
return  of  courtesies  not  to  heed  the  admonitions. 
They  are  not  wanting  either  in  number  or  in  pun- 
gency. Even  while  he  warns  Europeans  not  to  do 
us  injustice  or  exaggerate  our  faults,  he  admits  that 
we  have  still  a  good  stock  of  the  "more  civilized 
forms  of  vulgarity." 

"The  result  is  not  necessarily,  as  Europeans  often  wrongly 
imagine,  a  general  moblike  vulgarity:  but  a  bumptious  ora- 
tory, a  flippant  superficiality  of  style,  a  lack  of  aesthetic  re- 
finement, an  underestimation  of  the  serious  specialist  and  an 
overestimation  of  the  unproductive  popularizer,  a  constant 
exploitation  of  immature  young  men  with  loud  newspaper 
voices  and  complete  inability  to  appreciate  the  services  of 
older  men,  a  triumph  of  gossip,  and  a  crushing  defeat  of  all 
aims  that  work  against  the  lazy  liking  for  money-making  and 
comfort."  * 

1  "American  Traits,"  p.  29.  a  Ibid.,  p.  196, 


A    PHILOSOPHER   AS    MEDIATOR  261 

Again,  what  is  becoming  of  our  fine  hypocrisies 
about  social  equality?  There  is  no  need  to  refer 
to  our  behavior  to  the  Chinese  since  the  sand-lot 
orator,  Denis  Kearney,  roused  California  masses 
against  them,  or  the  Indians,  or  the  prevention  of 
the  negro  vote.  No  reference  is  necessary  to  the 
open  chase  for  foreign  titles.  The  practical  ignoring 
and  even  hatred  of  the  equalities  to  which  lip-service 
has  been  given,  may  be  seen  spreading  like  a  conta- 
gion through  our  entire  system.  Quiet  and  ordi- 
nary Americans,  whose  means  permit  them  to  build 
a  better  house,  as  far  as  possible  from  the  poorer 
neighbors,  are  quick  to  discover  that  they  "really 
can't  any  longer  send  their  darlings  to  the  public 
school."  The  company  is  too  common.  Schools 
now  numbering  thousands,  supported  by  millions 
of  money,  have  sprung  into  existence  and  are  fast 
increasing.  These  are  frankly  based  on  a  principle 
of  social  selection  that  is  the  very  breath  of  an  imi- 
tated aristocracy.  The  public  schools  in  which 
such  brave  hopes  were  placed  as  the  bulwarks  of 
democracy  are  now  in  a  sinister  sense  not  good 
enough  for  the  well-to-do.  Though  the  education 
and,  above  all,  the  most  needed  element  of  discipline 
may  be  better  in  the  public  school,  it  is  not  good 
enough  socially  for  growing  multitudes  of  Americans. 
We  are  very  ingenious  in  the  use  of  pretty  sophistries 
to  explain  the  reasons  why  children  must  go  to 
"select"  schools,  but  no  one  need  be  deceived.  Dr. 
Miinsterberg  says :  — 


262  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

"Where  is  the  equality  in  the  inner  life  of  America?  Of 
course  it  is  true  that  we  have  public  schools  where  all  are 
equal;  the  only  difficulty  is  that  they  are  not  in  use.  Yes, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  we  are  fast  approaching  a  state  where 
nobody  in  a  city  sends  his  children  to  the  public  schools  when 
his  means  allow  him  to  pay  for  the  instruction  of  a  private 
school."  l 

Or  it  is  what  the  author  calls  "the  pedigree 
spleen"  which  has  now  caught  "the  best  material 
of  the  nation." 

"If  a  single  family  of  Connecticut  needs  three  volumes  of 
2740  quarto  pages  to  print  its  own  history;  if  the  Daughters  of 
the  Revolution  have  27,000  members;  if  the  genealogical 
societies  like  the  Colonial  Dames,  the  Daughters  of  the  Hol- 
land Dames,  the  Mayflower  Descendants,  and  so  on,  multiply 
with  every  year,  —  the  aristocratic  undercurrent  cannot  be 
doubted."  * 

The  organized  pilgrimages  in  search  of  proof 
that  our  family  origins  are  in  touch  with  the  proud 
and  the  mighty  now  fill  the  land.  A  learned  gentle- 
man in  charge  of  one  of  our  genealogical  societies 
tells  me  that  to  watch  the  good  people  who  crowd 
his  rooms  seeking  for  aristocratic  connections  about 
which  they  can  brag  the  rest  of  their  lives,  is  to  learn 
that  human  nature  in  this  country  is  as  full  of  toady- 
ism as  that  of  any  people  who  ever  lived.  One  in- 
dustrious lady,  after  much  expense  and  years  of 
trouble,  discovered  a  thread  which  connects  her  with 
an  English  yeoman.  She  hurried  hi  agitation  to  the 

1  "American  Traits,"  p.  227.  2  Ibid.,  p.  228. 


A   PHILOSOPHER    AS    MEDIATOR  263 

librarian  to  find  out  what  a  "yeoman"  might  be. 
The  answer  was  a  little  disappointing.  She  said, 
"I  suppose  I've  got  to  put  up  with  him,  but  I  did 
hope  after  all  I  paid  out,  I'd  find  an  ancestor  that 
wore  armor  and  a  helmet." 

Another  librarian  tells  me  that  it  is  one  of  his  ex- 
periences to  have  these  unsatisfied  souls,  after  much 
seeking,  come  to  him  with  the  finger  on  some  heraldic 
device  that  specially  pleases  them  —  they  like  its 
shape  or  colors  —  and  say  bluntly :  "  I've  concluded 
to  take  that.  How  much  is  it?"  When  it  is  ex- 
plained that  coats  of  arms  are  not  sold  in  that  society, 
"I  sometimes  tell  them  there  are  plenty  of  places 
where  they  can  buy  them,  and  I  have  never  known 
any  persons  to  fail  to  make  the  aristocratic  connec- 
tion if  they  kept  at  it."  To  furnish  very  humble 
Americans  with  distinguished  ancestry  is  an  enor- 
mous business  now  in  this  country. 

The  Boston  Transcript  began  some  years  ago  very 
modestly;  but  now  with  rhythmic  devotion  several 
columns  of  fine  print  are  given  once  a  week  to  this 
cult.  The  urgency  is  such  that  the  editor  now  ap- 
peals to  contributors  to  have  mercy.  He  has  to 
print  regularly  this  warning :  — 

"The  pressure  upon  the  genealogical  department  has  be- 
come so  great  and  matter  has  accumulated  to  such  an  extent 
that  it  is  impossible  to  insert  queries  as  soon  as  they  are  re- 
ceived." 

Thus  the  "pedigree  spleen"  grows  apace  in  the 
land  where  "all  men  are  created  equal." 


i 


264  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

Another  graver  fault  in  this  author's  eyes  is  the 
American  superstition  that  "almost  anybody  can 
do  almost  anything."  Any  young  girl  is  competent 
to  teach  a  Sunday-school  class  or  a  country  school. 
Any  one  who  does  service  for  the  party  in  caucus 
or  on  the  stump  is  fit  to  be  consul,  though  totally 
ignorant  of  the  language,  customs,  and  commerce  of 
the  people  to  whom  he  is  accredited.  Everybody  is 
fit  to  be  a  representative,  on  the  school  committee, 
or  any  kind  of  inspector.  In  discussing  Winston 
Churchill's  "Coniston"  a  politician  of  large  experi- 
ence hi  New  Hampshire  says:  "The  railroads  have 
done  much  to  corrupt  the  people,  but  there  is  a  deeper 
evil.  The  common  idea  that  everybody  ought  to  go 
to  the  legislature  and  is  fitted  to  go  there,  is  what 
blocks  the  first  necessary  steps  toward  reform."  Ac- 
cording to  Dr.  Miinsterberg,  the  greatness  of  Ger- 
many has  been  won  by  faith  in  the  man  of  special 
training.  We  have  practised  this  in  all  our  most 
successful  businesses,  but  it  has  been  the  bane  of 
our  political  life  to  test  fitness  by  a  mere  party  fealty 
that  bears  no  relation  to  the  duties  of  the  office 
sought.  That  we  are  now  (as  in  the  question  of 
consuls)  aroused  to  some  sense  of  our  long  blunder- 
ing, is  to  this  critic  bright  with  promise. 

The  name  he  gives  to  this  superstition  is  "demo- 
cratic dilettantism,"  which  has  smitten  us  with  "an 
ineffective  triviality  which  repels  the  best  men  and 
opens  wide  the  doors  of  dishonesty."  It  is  thought 
to  be  the  crudest  absurdity  to  ask  any  man  to  be  the 


A   PHILOSOPHER   AS   MEDIATOR  265 

mayor  of  a  German  city,  unless  he  has  thorough 
administrative  training  in  city  business.  To  make 
this  office,  as  it  is  made  in  this  country,  the  helter- 
skelter  prize  of  factional  policies  is  properly  described 
by  a  former  German  Minister,  Schleiden,  who  wrote, 
"American  municipal  politics  will  remain  corrupt 
and  wasteful  until  the  people  learn  that  educated 
ability  is  the  sole  qualification  for  city  offices."  Pro- 
fessor Miinsterberg  attributes  many  phases  of  our 
weakness  and  troubles  to  this  "chronic  dilettantism." 
It  works  like  a  poison  at  the  root  of  large  parts  of 
our  educational  system :  — 

"We  have  instead  a  misery  which  can  be  characterized  by 
one  statistical  fact:  only  two  per  cent  of  the  school-teachers 
possess  any  degree  whatever.  If  the  majority  of  college 
teachers  are  hardly  prepared  to  teach  in  a  secondary  school, 
if  the  majority  of  high -school  teachers  are  hardly  fit  to  teach 
in  a  primary  school,  and  if  the  majority  of  primary  school- 
teachers are  just  enough  educated  to  fill  a  salesgirl's  place  in  a 
millinery  store,  then  every  other  reform  is  self-deceit."  ' 

This  writer  is  saying  only  what  other  friendly  and 
competent  men  have  said  of  all  but  our  exceptional 
education. 

In  a  report  of  the  Royal  German  Commission  in 
1904,  Dr.  Dunker  writes  of  the  average  American 
school :  — 

"The  difficulties  are  avoided,  mistakes  passed  by;  fre- 
quently the  pupils  are  given  great  tasks  whose  performances 
would  exceed  their  power,  and  the  school  is  satisfied  with  a 

1  "American  Traits,"  p.  76. 


266  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

childish  treatment  of  the  subject  and  makes  the  impression 
upon  the  children  that  the  problem  has  been  fully  solved. 
This  results  in  quickness  of  judgment,  self-confidence,  super- 
ficiality, and  dilettantism.  .  .  . 

"Everywhere  there  is  credulous  optimism  coupled  with 
harmless  dilettantism;  everywhere  high  aim,  liberal  execu- 
tion; but  lack  of  solidity  in  matters  of  detail." 

These  observations  are,  of  course,  made  daily  by 
our  own  abler  educators,  often  in  more  uncompro- 
mising terms.  But  the  business  now  is  not  with 
our  own  faultfinding.  The  essence  of  the  criticism 
is  that  we  suffer  grievously  from  lack  of  thoroughness 
as  compared  to  the  German  standard,  and  that,  above 
all,  our  general  education  fails  in  sustained  discipli- 
nary power.  This  lack  of  thoroughness  and  of 
discipline  leaves  us  with  a  thousand  coddling  pri- 
vate schools  with  no  severity  of  standard  whatsoever. 
It  gives  the  pretentious  list  of  studies  and  the  display 
of  pupils  on  show  days  when  the  public  is  admitted. 
It  tests  education  by  its  promise  of  immediate  cash 
returns.  That  the  nobler  and  more  disinterested 
ideals  of  education  thus  lose  honor,  Dr.  Miinster- 
berg  lets  us  see  in  a  passage  which  will  bear  much 
pondering :  — 

"A  lack  of  reverence  pervades  the  whole  community  and 
controls  the  family,  the  school,  the  public  life.  The  pert 
American  boy  who  does  just  what  he  pleases  may  thus  get  an 
early  training  in  democratic  politics;  but  while  he  wastes 
the  best  of  the  home  and  the  class  room,  he  gets  at  the  same 
time  the  worst  possible  training  for  the  duties  of  life,  all  of 
which  demand  that  he  do  later  quite  other  things  than  those 
which  he  likes  to  do. 


A   PHILOSOPHER   AS   MEDIATOR  267 

"  He  will  learn  too  late  that  it  is  a  great  thing  to  command, 
but  a  greater  thing  to  obey,  and  that  no  one  can  sign  early 
enough  the  declaration  of  dependence." 

That  it  is  greater  to  obey  than  to  command  is 
nobly  true,  and  it  has  to  be  admitted  that  the  ideals 
of  obedience  are  less  popular  among  our  boys 
and  girls  than  dreams  of  domination  over  others. 
Neither  is  it  quite  a  fad  among  our  youth  to  give 
their  signatures  to  "the  declaration  of  dependence." 
One  of  our  teachers,  into  whose  school  came  a  small 
group  of  pupils  from  South  Germany,  said :  "  They 
seemed  for  one  term  to  be  a  different  species.  They 
had  not  been  cowed,  but  there  was  a  charm  of  def- 
erence, a  delicacy  of  consideration,  and  a  capacity 
to  blush  which  stood  out  in  strange  contrast  to  the 
mass  of  our  pupils.  Within  a  few  months,  I  could 
see  that  these  pretty  ways  could  not  be  retained  in 
the  new  atmosphere."  For  this  loss  do  we  get 
some  compensation  in  greater  "self-determination" 
which  this  critic  notes  as  one  of  our  traits  ? 

The  spirit  of  reverence  as  expressed  in  the  docility 
of  the  German  child  we  cannot  have,  any  more 
than  we  can  have  the  ruthless  discipline  of  the  Ger- 
man army.  Since  it  is  so  hopelessly  beyond  our 
reach,  let  us  believe  that  there  are  some  compensa- 
tions for  its  loss. 

The  final  reproof  of  this  author  is  graver  still.  If 
the  American  is  sure  of  anything,  it  is  that  he  enjoys 
an  amount  of  freedom  of  which  Old  World  societies 
know  little.  The  possession  of  liberty  is  our  strong 


268  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

point.  But  what  does  it  signify  to  have  liberty; 
really  to  be  free  in  the  large  sense  of  that  word  ?  Is 
the  South  free  to  discuss  the  race  problem  strictly 
and  fearlessly  upon  its  merits?  Hundreds  of  the 
best  Southerners  will  tell  you  that  the  political  and 
social  spectre  raised  by  that  issue  silences  freedom  of 
speech.  Can  their  theological  professors  deal  boldly 
with  the  accepted  results  of  scientific  and  critical 
investigation  ?  Can  the  Bible  on  one  side,  and  Dar- 
win on  the  other,  have  open  and  bold  discussion? 
There  are  no  better  men  in  the  South  than  those  who 
say  that  this  is  impossible,  and  that  many  years  must 
pass  before  anything  like  the  German  academic 
freedom  will  be  attained.  In  scores  of  Northern 
colleges  of  sectarian  tradition  this  is  also  true.  This 
is  what  Professor  Miinsterberg  has  in  mind  when 
he  points  to  the  higher  freedom  in  Germany.  In 
this  respect  the  Germans  are  our  superiors.  It  is 
one  of  our  humiliations  that  we  still  carry  on  the 
heresy  hunt  against  men  who  merely  try  to  interpret 
the  elementary  results  of  a  scientific  world  scholar- 
ship. 

The  other  sphere  in  which  our  moral  liberty  suffers 
is  even  more  important.  Intellectual  slavery  is 
nowhere  so  dangerous  socially  as  in  our  politics. 
"To  the  independence  of  public  men,"  he  says, 
"and  to  their  loyalty  to  the  commonwealth,  party 
bondage  is  fatal."  Of  certain  legislative  bills  he  is 
told  in  private  how  bad  and  mischievous  they  are; 
but  when  they  come  up,  no  one  "  dares  to  say  a  word." 


A   PHILOSOPHER   AS   MEDIATOR  269 

The  heresy  for  which  men  widely  care  is  no  longer 
theological,  but  economic,  and  even  this  word  but 
half  expresses  the  truth.  The  heresy  for  which  blood 
money  is  now  demanded  is  upon  the  surface  political, 
but  the  unseen  heart  of  it  is  business  and  property 
interests  over  which  men  are  hi  conflict.  It  may  be 
sugar  on  one  side  and  Philippine  tariff  on  the  other, 
but  the  ordinary  political  contest  is  only  an  outer 
aspect  of  competitive  struggles  for  desired  properties. 
If  people  really  value  these  more  than  they  value 
other  things,  they  will  barter  the  spirit  and  the  letter 
of  the  Great  Declaration  —  all  the  stately  syntax 
about  equalities  and  rights  —  for  the  economic  ends 
they  have  in  sight.  When  that  great  dreamer  and 
doer,  Cecil  Rhodes,  said  the  English  flag  was  a  good 
business  asset,  he  was  putting  in  words,  even  if  mock- 
ingly, what  our  most  masterful  business  men  system- 
atically act  upon.  Politics  is  a  pawn  in  the  game 
of  strategic  business  control.  It  is  this,  and  this 
alone,  which  explains  most  of  the  lawlessness  of 
"the  great  interests";  but  also  the  other  most 
serious  criticism  of  four  other  of  our  fairest  and 
ablest  critics,  namely,  the  "abdication  of  intellectual 
freedom"  under  the  dictates  of  party  politics  —  De 
Tocqueville,  Chevalier,  Bryce,  and  Ostrogorski. 

They  are  also  as  a  unit  upon  this  other  accusation : 
"The  party  ruler  in  America  with  his  methods  of 
nomination  deprives  the  individual  of  his  political 
powers  more  completely  than  any  aristocratic  system, 
and  the  despotism  of  the  boss  easily  turns  into  the 


270  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

tyranny  of  a  group  of  capitalists."  The  paragraph 
modernizes  De  Tocqueville's  chief  misgiving  about 
us.  Ostrogorski,1  who  studied  this  feature  of  our 
life  with  a  fearless  impartiality  that  won  from  Mr. 
Bryce  the  highest  praise,  has  drawn  conclusions  that 
we  have  to  face  or  become  convicted  of  inexcusable 
timidities.  When  he  finds  that  the  greater  private 
interests  act  so  promptly  upon  Congress  that  the 
freedom  of  individual  members  seems  to  be  lost,  we 
think  of  a  commanding  state,  the  pivotal  state,  — 
New  York,  —  and  her  two  present  senators.  Can 
any  one  point  to  a  solitary  hint  of  constructive  policy 
that  is  traceable  either  to  Mr.  Platt  or  to  Mr.  Depew  ? 
Are  they  free  to  act  even  for  the  people  of  their  own 
state  ?  They  are  thought  of  as  serving  henchmen  — 
the  one  for  a  great  railroad,  the  other  for  an  express 
company.  What  two  men  have  had  such  chances 
to  know  of  the  inner  corruption  of  New  York  politics  ? 
With  all  their  knowledge  of  these  things,  has  either 
of  them  lifted  a  hand  to  disclose  or  check  these  evils  ? 
One  of  our  critics  asks  these  perturbing  questions, 
speaking  of  one  of  our  most  famous  senators,  in  whose 
state  party  politics  was  managed  by  a  boss  of  notori- 
ous venality:  "How  is  it  possible  that  this  senator 
should  not  know  the  practices  of  that  boss?  If  he 
knows  them  and  willingly  profits  by  them  to  keep  his 
place,  in  what  is  he  better  than  the  boss  himself  ?  If 
he  knows  them,  why  is  he  not  the  first  to  cry  out  and 

1  "  Democracy  and  the   Organization    of   Political   Parties," 
Macmillan,  1902. 


A   PHILOSOPHER   AS   MEDIATOR  271 

appeal  to  the  people  against  such  corruption?" 
"The  hardest  thing  to  understand  in  the  United 
States  is  that  these  political  leaders  in  Eastern  states 
like  Pennsylvania,  Rhode  Island,  Ohio,  should  con- 
sent to  keep  silent  while  a  lot  of  journalists  investi- 
gate and  explain  the  evils  to  the  public."  Yes,  this 
is  hard  to  understand,  and  few  of  us  ever  heard  the 
explanation.  Our  critics  tell  us  that  these  men  are 
in  no  sense  free ;  that  they  are  bound  hand  and  foot 
so  far  as  freedom  to  act  and  speak  in  the  large  public 
interest  is  concerned.  Senator  Quay  could  plead 
with  a  pathos  of  disinterestedness,  for  what?  for 
the  reforming  at  home  of  a  systematized  party  cor- 
ruption that  has  long  been  a  by- word  in  the  land? 
No,  not  for  this,  but  for  the  Indians,  in  whom  he 
had,  I  believe,  a  humane  interest.  But  how  safe 
and  far  away  from  home  diseases  these  wards  of  the 
nation  are ! 

The  final  Summary  and  Conclusion  in  the  closing 
volume  of  Ostrogorski 1  should  have  a  separate 
printing  and  be  read  by  every  American  who  knows 
the  language.  It  is  referred  to  here  for  its  sturdy 
reenforcement  of  Munsterberg's  gravest  indictment. 

We  are  familiar  with  habeas  corpus  and  reckon  it 
among  the  most  precious  of  our  political  posses- 
sions. But  this  author  asks  us  about  habeas  animum. 
We  still  deliver  the  body,  but  how  next  are  we  to 
deliver  a  free  mind,  —  how  free  the  spirit  from  the 
dead  body  of  party  tyranny  ?  This  is  the  summons. 
1  Vol.  II,  pp.  336-741. 


272  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

He  says  wisely  that  it  is  folly  to  throw  the  blame 
solely  upon  the  party  leaders.  It  is  the  whole  men- 
tal attitude  of  the  voters  that  needs  to  be  unbound. 
It  is  this  public,  he  says,  that  is  now  made  to  believe 
"  that  the  citizen  who  follows  his  party  blindly  is  a 
'patriot/  and  that  the  prostitution  of  power  to  a 
party  is  a  pious  action.  These  idols,  as  Bacon  would 
say,  must  be  destroyed.  Men  must  be  taught  to 
use  their  judgment  and  to  act  independently.  It 
is  on  the  accomplishment  of  this  work  of  liberation 
that  the  whole  future  of  democracy  depends. 

"  In  the  absence  of  this  independence  and  this 
vigilance,  demagogism  and  corruption  have  entered 
the  house  in  broad  day,  as  a  thief  enters  in  the  night. 
Democracy  thenceforth  received  a  check,  and  not 
through  an  excess  of  liberty,  as  so  many  of  its  critics 
imagine,  but  from  a  deficiency  of  it,  from  a  want  of 
moral  liberty  in  this  government  of  free  reason."  * 

Again  and  again  we  have  passages  like  this :  — 

"And  these  men  enter  Congress  as  slaves  of  the  Machine 
and  the  Boss,  of  sordid  parochial  considerations,  or  of  power- 
ful private  interests,  industrial  or  financial,  which  are  so  often 
in  league  with  the  machine.  One  or  other  of  these  servitudes 
of  mind  and  conscience,  or  even  of  all  combined,  is  what  they 
have  to  pay  for  their  seat.  The  House,  therefore,  is  simply  a 
diet  of  representatives  of  private  or  local  interests,  and  it  has 
been  aptly  remarked  that  every  interest  is  represented  in  it 
except  the  public  interest."  2 

1  "Democracy,"  Vol.  II,  pp.  728,  729. 

2  Vol.  II,  p.  544- 


A   PHILOSOPHER   AS   MEDIATOR  273 

We  are  not  dealing  here  with  irresponsible  cranks 
or  muck-rake  journalists,  but  with  friendly,  impar- 
tial, and  equipped  scholars.  Of  the  one  now  quoted 
Mr.  Bryce  could  say  that  few  men  ever  brought  a 
more  scientific  spirit  to  his  task. 

Habeas  animum;  to  get  the  really  free  mind  in  the 
realm  of  politics,  to  enlarge  every  fearless  activity 
of  political  independence,  is  our  supreme  need. 
This  warning  is  as  if  De  Tocqueville  spoke  from  the 
dead  to  say  again  what  he  wrote  long  since.  Though 
in  unsoftened  phrases,  it  is  the  soul  of  Mr.  Bryce's 
appeal  for  a  manlier  independence  of  party  whips. 
Firm  in  his  purpose  to  defend  and  to  take  us  at  our 
best,  Dr.  Munsterberg  puts  his  finger  on  the  same 
cancerous  spot. 

It  is  as  if  these  well-wishers  spoke  with  a  single 
voice,  "  There  is  just  as  much  safety  for  your  Democ- 
racy as  there  is  moral  and  mental  independence  of 
party  tyranny  in  your  citizens." 


CHAPTER  XV 

A   SOCIALIST  CRITIC 

SOME  twenty  years  ago  a  scientific  teacher  in 
England,  Dr.  Aveling,  the  socialist,  came  to  this 
country  with  his  wife,  the  brilliant  daughter  of  Karl 
Marx.  I  tried  to  interest  them  in  some  of  the 
obvious  prosperities  in  New  England,  but  the  task 
was  without  hope.  That  fortune  had  a  smile  for 
this  trade-smitten  country;  that  there  was  well- 
being  anywhere  among  the  workers,  these  visitors 
did  not  wish  to  hear.  For  the  mishaps,  calumnies, 
dishonors  of  our  business  and  political  life,  they  had 
the  hungriest  appetite.  But  that  any  good  was  to 
appear  on  the  horizon  of  a  country  so  given  to  busi- 
ness traffic,  was  not  to  be  believed.  Both  had  open- 
mouthed  credulity  for  every  evil  report,  and  as  gaping 
an  incredulity  about  everything  hopeful.  In  this 
spirit  they  took  notes,  which  appeared  later  in  a 
bitter  and  distorted  book. 

The  veteran  German  Socialist  and  Parliamenta- 
rian, Liebknecht,  was  with  them,  but  in  far  kindlier 
humor.  He,  too,  thought  we  were  going  to  the 
bow-wows,  but  were  having  a  great  deal  of  fun  get- 
ting there.  When  he  saw  that  the  big  stores  were 
not  swallowing  up  all  the  little  ones,  it  did  not  make 

274 


H.  G.  WELLS 

Author  of  "The  Future  in  America  " 


A   SOCIALIST   CRITIC  275 

him  sulky.  Thus  Socialists,  like  other  folk,  come 
to  us  with  different  tempers.  To  those  of  more 
open  mind  it  is  an  admirable  discipline  to  visit  this 
country  and  see  it  with  some  care. 

A  German  professor  (Katheder-Socialist)  was 
here.  He  had  taught  for  years  that  the  state  was  a 
positive  power  that  could  be  made  to  work  produc- 
tively in  a  thousand  ways  for  man's  welfare.  To 
manage  railroads,  mines,  slaughter-houses,  tele- 
graphs, was  a  small  part  of  what  it  had  yet  to  do. 
The  state  could  be  made  creative.  It  could  pro- 
duce values  and  equalities.  This  has  not  been 
the  American  idea.  We  have  been  taught  that  the 
Government  is  a  necessity,  like  the  policeman,  the 
tax-gatherer,  and  the  court.  These  stand  for  order 
and  justice  among  men,  but  they  are  luxuries  that 
have  to  be  paid  for  by  the  private  industry  and  the 
thrift  of  the  people.  I  do  not  know  that  this  pro- 
fessor returned  to  his  own  country  with  any  change 
of  view  about  the  German  government,  but  he  told 
me  that  he  had  never  in  the  least  realized  what  pri- 
vate and  unaided  effort  could  do  in  creating  a  stu- 
pendous material  prosperity  such  as  the  world  has 
not  seen.  "You  think  of  your  government,"  he 
said,  "as  if  it  were  merely  to  be  supported  like  a 
hospital;  as  if  it  were  a  negation,  rather  than  a 
positive  thing.  Your  people  set  to  work  as  if  they 
had  never  heard  of  it.  Your  achievements  are  so 
vast  that  they  are  a  kind  of  final  argument.  Your 
way  may  be,  after  all,  best,  at  least  for  you." 


276  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

Another  Socialist  came,  of  extremer  type.  He  had 
believed  and  taught  that  combinations  were  every- 
where absorbing  little  industries.  Our  great  pri- 
mary industry  of  farming,  to  which  he  gave  special 
attention,  was  very  upsetting  to  him.  He  found 
many  of  the  bonanza  farms  being  cut  up,  because 
they  did  not  pay  or  would  pay  better  subdivided. 
He  was  told  that  the  progressive  up-to-date  farming 
was  steadily  toward  smaller  areas.  His  chief  amaze- 
ment was  the  prosperity  of  the  small  farmer  on  good 
soils  through  the  Middle  West.  "A  more  inde- 
pendent and  thriving  population  than  these  tillers 
of  the  soil,  I  have  not  seen."  America,  he  said,  is 
"a  great  touchstone  for  social  theories.  No  man 
should  become  anything  until  he  has  seen  it  well." 

Mr.  Upton  Sinclair  opens  his  new  book  *  with  the 
deliberate  assertion  that  the  great  revolution  is  so 
close  upon  our  heels  that  we  shall  be  in  the  very 
throes  of  it  within  one  year  after  the  presidential 
election  of  1912.  He  makes  his  prediction  as  "a 
Socialist  and  prophet."  So  soon  will  the  touch- 
stone of  events  be  applied  to  him!  Another  pre- 
cipitate Socialist  signs  his  name  in  a  Boston  club, 
"Yours  for  the  Revolution,  Jack  London."  In  the 
club  was  another  Socialist  who  straightway  fol- 
lowed with  his  signature,  "There  ain't  going  to  be  no 
revolution,  H.  G.  Wells."  So  different  in  its  effects 
is  the  great  touchstone  America  ! 

I  once  heard  a  bumptious  person  criticising  a  por- 

1  "The  Industrial  Republic." 


A   SOCIALIST   CRITIC  277 

trait  by  a  clever  artist  in  his  studio.  When  the  critic 
had  gone,  the  artist  made  an  unflattering  speech, 
which  ended  with  these  words,  "What  that  booby 
thinks  of  the  portrait  isn't  interesting,  but  I  should 
pay  well  to  know  what  the  portrait  thinks  of  him." 
If  it  were  articulate,  what  would  the  touchstone 
America  say  of  many  of  its  critics  ? 

I  have  sought  diligently  for  American  views  of 
Mr.  Wells's  book,  "  The  Future  in  America."  That 
so  many  cordial  opinions  are  expressed  by  those 
who  have  experience  enough  to  judge  it  largely,  is 
full  of  good  omen.  Very  little  criticism  that  cuts 
deeper  has  been  written  about  us.  There  are  pages 
(like  some  of  those  in  the  chapter  on  "State  Blind- 
ness") which  most  Americans  would  do  well  to 
ponder  long;  passages,  too,  like  this,  after  discover- 
ing the  hideous  fact  that  child  labor  is  actually  upon 
the  increase  in  the  United  States :  — 

"This  is  the  bottomest  end  of  the  scale  that  at  the  top  has 
all  the  lavish  spending  of  Fifth  Avenue,  the  joyous  wanton 
giving  of  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie.  Equally  with  these  things 
it  is  an  unpremeditated  consequence  of  an  inadequate  theory 
of  freedom.  The  foolish  extravagance  of  the  rich,  the  archi- 
tectural pathos  of  Newport,  the  dingy,  noisy,  economic  jumble 
of  central  and  south  Chicago,  the  Standard  Oil  offices  in 
Broadway,  the  darkened  streets  beneath  the  New  York  ele- 
vated railroad,  the  littered  ugliness  of  Niagara's  banks,  and 
the  lowermost  hell  of  child  suffering  are  all  so  many  accordant 
aspects  and  inexorable  consequences  of  the  same  undisciplined 
way  of  living." 

It  is  a  book  that  many  a  reader  will  merrily  skip 
through,  thinking  its^laims  to  serious  attention  are 


278  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

very  slight.  This  is  an  almost  pitiful  error.  For 
a  century,  perhaps,  several  books  a  year  have  been 
written  about  us,  but  not  a  baker's  dozen  of  them 
deserve  more  assiduous  attention  than  this  small 
volume.  It  is  the  charm  of  "The  Future  in  Amer- 
ica" that  the  author  is  just  enough  haunted  by  the 
magnitude  of  his  task  to  be  a  little  afraid  of  it.  He 
does  not  take  himself  too  seriously  or  fall  into  pedan- 
tries. He  is  very  graceful  in  avoiding  the  hard 
realities  that  ask  for  too  definite  and  cock-sure  opin- 
ions. His  polished  gaieties  serve  him  well  in  many 
a  tight  place,  where  a  prosy  literalism  would  leave 
him  knee-deep  in  difficulties.  It  is  a  book  full  of 
imaginative  insight,  full  of  swift  glimpses,  as  if  the 
eye  were  aided  by  a  powerful  glass.  Even  when  he 
looks  upon  a  great  question,  like  that  of  immigra- 
tion, or  of  the  negro,  he  throws  more  light  into  it 
and  about  it  than  many  who  have  lived  long  in  its 
presence.  Let  us  first  see  his  attitude  toward  these 
two  issues.  They,  too,  are  touchstones. 

The  author  has  a  keen  and  instructed  interest  in 
race  problems.  His  eye,  so  quick  to  detect  the  in- 
ner taint  in  what  seems  flushed  with  health,  is  at 
once  fixed  upon  the  momentous  inpouring  of  our  im- 
migration. It  fills  him  with  foreboding.  He  sees 
that  the  more  disciplined  peoples  of  North  Europe 
have  become  a  tiny  stream  as  compared  with  the 
broadening  flood  from  South  and  Eastern  Europe. 
That  Constantinople  should  soon  be  the  geographic 
centre  of  these  human  tides  opens  a  gloomy  vista  to 


A   SOCIALIST   CRITIC  279 

his  imagination,  because  we  are  so  afraid  of  adequate 
state  regulation.  He  sees  us  thrusting  the  vote  upon 
these  raw  peasants,  but  "that  does  not  free  them,  it 
only  enslaves  the  country."  He  speaks  as  if  he  were 
watching  a  continent  struggling  with  indigestion. 
"...  the  dark  shadow*  of  disastrous  possibility 
remains.  The  immigrant  comes  in  to  weaken  and 
confuse  the  counsels  of  labor,  to  serve  the  purpose 
of  corruption,  to  complicate  any  economic  and  social 
development,  above  all  to  retard  the  development 
of  that  national  consciousness  and  will  on  which  the 
hope  of  the  future  depends."  Very  deftly  he  touches 
the  points  at  which  immigration  adds  to  the  weight 
of  our  burden.  It  does  make  the  labor  problem 
harder  and  political  trickeries  easier.  It  does  com- 
plicate social  development,  and,  most  of  all,  it  does 
retard  the  fusing  of  common  social  consciousness 
and  will,  that  are  indispensable  to  unified  action  in 
community  life. 

The  deepest  reason  why  employers  and  people  of 
easy  incomes  generally  want  the  immigrant  does  not 
escape  him.  He  states  it  thus:  "...  that  America, 
in  the  urgent  process  of  individualistic  industrial 
development,  in  its  feverish  haste  to  get  through  with 
its  material  possibilities,  is  importing  a  large  portion 
of  the  peasantry  of  Central  and  Eastern  Europe,  and 
converting  it  into  a  practically  illiterate  industrial 
proletariat." 

Again,  with  the  same  firm  stroke,  he  traces  two 
of  the  heaviest  shadows  that  fall  on  this  race  move- 


2&D  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

ment:  first,  the  effect  upon  the  child  life  born  into 
the  poorer  and  most  cramped  quarters  of  our  cities. 
The  parents  come  with  the  simple  habits  of  country 
ways.  They  are  diligent  and  of  good  behavior.  In 
spite  of  some  lying  jugglery  in  statistical  form,  they 
are  very  free  from  criminal  propensities.  But  their 
offspring,  thrust  into  city  streets  for  their  first  habit- 
making  before  the  school  begins !  —  here  is  an  evil 
sinister  enough.  The  second  is  the  inevitable 
coarsening  effect  which  the  new  liberties  and  freedom 
from  traditional  restraints  are  likely  to  bring  upon 
hordes  of  the  fresh  comers  to  our  shores.  This  is 
his  estimate :  — 

"It  seems  to  me  that  the  immigrant  arrives  an  artless,  rather 
uncivilized,  pious,  good-hearted  peasant,  with  a  disposition 
toward  submissive  industry  and  rude  effectual  moral  habits. 
America,  it  is  alleged,  makes  a  man  of  him.  It  seems  to  me 
that  all  too  often  she  makes  an  infuriated  toiler  of  him,  tempts 
him  with  dollars  and  speeds  him  up  with  competition,  hardens 
him,  coarsens  his  manners,  and,  worst  crime  of  all,  lures  and 
forces  him  to  sell  his  children  into  toil.  The  home  of  the  im- 
migrant in  America  looks  to  me  worse  than  the  home  he  came 
from  in  Italy.  It  is  just  as  dirty,  it  is  far  less  simple  and  beau- 
tiful, the  food  is  no  more  wholesome,  the  moral  atmosphere  far 
less  wholesome;  and,  as  a  consequence,  the  child  of  the  im- 
migrant is  a  worse  man  than  his  father." 

A  young  woman  from  a  New  York  settlement 
takes  Mr.  Wells  to  watch  the  patriotic  exercises  in  the 
school  close  by.  He  listens,  not  without  a  thrill  of 
sympathy,  to  the  clamorous  adoration  that  lights  a 
hundred  immigrant  faces  as  the  little  flags  go  up. 


A   SOCIALIST   CRITIC  281 

"Do  you  know,"  he  says,  "I  too  have  come  near 
feeling  that  at  times  for  America?"  Then  he  goes 
out  from  this  glad  consecration  into  the  dirty  street, 
where  he  stumbles  upon  "a  heap  of  decaying  filth 
that  some  hawker  had  dumped  in  the  gutter,"  and 
the  fine  spell  is  gone.  The  barbaric  disorders  dis- 
enchant him,  and  he  sees  in  the  murky  perspective 
of  some  future  near  or  far  three  words, 

"LYNCHINGS!  CHILD  LABOR!  GRAFT!" 

Then  comes  the  tragedy  of  another  problem,  that 
of  color.  He  looks  into  the  Southland  at  the  negro 
and  his  destiny,  close  coupled  with  that  of  his  white 
neighbors.  Here  he  sees  even  less  hope.  As  for 
immigration,  he  admits  that  America  may  suddenly 
rouse  herself  to  heroic  educational  enterprises  that 
may  lift  the  peasant  armies  into  disciplined  efficien- 
cies, that  will  make  the  vast  invasion  safe,  but  this 
riddle  of  the  African  so  socially  separated  from  the 
whites,  with  the  coarse  prejudices  waxing  rather 
than  waning,  what  gleam  of  light  is  discernible  here  ? 
From  all  sorts  of  Americans  he  seeks  information, 
only  to  be  staggered  by  utter  failure.  He  cannot 
get  even  "the  beginnings  of  an  answer."  He  de- 
clares that  "hardly  any  Americans  at  all  seem  to  be 
in  possession  of  the  elementary  facts  in  relation  to 
this  question." 

In  the  mournful  undertone  of  his  speculation  only 
one  thing  is  clear  to  Mr.  Wells,  which  is,  that  the 


282  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

chief  obstacle  is  not  in  the  black  man  but  in  the  white. 
How  shall  this  same  proud  white  man  educate  him- 
self to  live  in  honor  with  the  weaker  people  ?  These 
weaker  ones  did  not  ask  to  come.  Their  fathers 
and  mothers  were  stolen  on  the  African  coast  and 
forced  in  terror  and  with  immense  atrocities  to 
come  to  this  country.  Their  descendants  are  now 
here  with  the  blood  of  their  masters  flowing  in  their 
veins.  Only  a  freak  here  and  there  will  talk  of 
deporting  them.  They  are  to  remain  in  our  midst. 
How  can  we  whites  educate  ourselves  into  that 
larger  tolerance  that  may  make  a  common  civiliza- 
tion possible  ?  How  can  we  use  our  superiorities  so 
that  wisdom  and  statesmanship  shall  more  and  more 
take  the  place  of  inherited  bias  and  passion  ? 

To  Mr.  Wells  there  is  one  unslain  dragon.  It  is 
the  dragon  of  a  Christless  and  religionless  race 
prejudice.  He  finds  it  as  bullying  and  insolent  in 
the  North  as  in  the  South.  How  are  we  whites  to 
rid  ourselves  of  this  great  uncleanness?  Nothing 
less  than  this  is  the  challenge. 

Mr.  Wells  is  not  deluded  about  the  black.  He 
does  not  see  him  as  a  white  man  who  happens  to 
have  a  darkened  skin.  The  indolence,  thriftless- 
ness,  and  gay  unconcern  of  the  negro  are  familiar  to 
him,  and  it  is  because  he  is  aware  of  these  that  we 
read  with  more  interest  the  following  tribute  to  the 
best  of  the  oncoming  negroes. 

"Whatever  America  has  to  show  in  heroic  living  to-day,  I 
doubt  if  she  can  show  anything  finer  than  the  quality  of  the 


A   SOCIALIST   CRITIC  283 

resolve,  the  steadfast  effort  hundreds  of  black  and  colored  men 
are  making  to-day  to  live  blamelessly,  honorably,  and  pa- 
tiently, getting  for  themselves  what  scraps  of  refinement, 
learning,  and  beauty  they  may,  keeping  their  hold  on  a  civili- 
zation they  are  grudged  and  denied." 

In  this  spirit  he  philosophizes,  but  always  with  the 
thought  of  how  things  are  coming  out.  How  do  the 
negro  and  the  immigrant  bear  upon  the  tasks  of  the 
next  generation?  He  finds  us  wofully  lacking  in 
action  that  bears  widely  upon  that  future.  We  can 
dig  ores  and  coal,  fell  trees,  exhaust  soils  at  a  terrific 
rate,  all  of  which  we  identify  with  "progress."  But 
how  is  this  frenzy  related  to  the  life  ahead  ?  Not  one 
of  his  graceful  pages  will  have  its  proper  reading 
unless  this  future  society  is  held  in  mind. 

Mr.  Wells  is  the  man  of  letters  and  of  science  with 
a  yearning  for  Utopias.  He  has  a  fine  disdain  for 
the  thing  that  is.  What  may  become  of  the  fact, 
what  may  be  made  out  of  it,  that  alone  entrances 
him.1  He  is  not  to  be  persuaded  to  give  an  hour  to 
the  home  of  Emerson  or  to  the  resting-place  of  George 
Washington.  Niagara  bores  him  as  much  as  the 
swift  turbines  enchant  him.  He  is  the  first  com- 
petent and  unashamed  Socialist  to  write  a  book  about 
us.  I  say  unashamed  because  he  does  not  flinch 

1  Mr.  Bryce  in  similar  vein  says  of  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives: "Here,  as  so  often  in  America,  one  thinks  rather  of  the 
future  than  of  the  present.  Of  what  tremendous  struggles  may 
not  this  Hall  become  the  theatre  in  ages  yet  far  distant,  when  the 
Parliaments  of  Europe  have  shrunk  to  insignificance  ?"  —  "Ameri- 
can Commonwealth,"  Vol.  I,  p.  149.  * 


284  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

from  or  shuffle  with  the  logic  of  his  faith.  The 
whole  conclave  of  our  conventional  idols  —  "busi- 
ness enterprise,"  " private  initiative,"  "property," 
"trade,"  "freedom,"  "patriotism,"  bourgeois  family 
and  state  —  are  to  him  half-amusing  and  half- mis- 
chievous superstitions.  He  is  always  the  socialist 
with  ample  and  generous  tolerance  for  our  illusions. 
There  is  no  hysteria,  no  fuming,  no  frenzied  invec- 
tive after  the  manner  of  your  ordinary  Socialist, 
against  the  predatory  culprits  called  Captains  of 
Industry.  If  these  masters  of  our  commercial  fate 
step  with  seven-league  boots,  if  they  move  and  act 
like  a  Colossus  dividing  the  spoils  after  their  own 
heart,  Mr.  Wells  falls  into  line  with  the  common 
army  of  admirers.  He  finds  them  diverting  and 
full  of  instruction.  How  else  can  a  people  be  taught 
the  baleful  logic  of  a  consecrated  capitalism?  If 
huckstering  and  market-dicing  with  high  finance 
are  to  be  glorified  until  they  absorb  the  best  talent 
of  the  nation,  how  are  the  multitudinous  victims  to 
be  disillusioned  except  they  see  stalking  among  them 
the  embodied  results  of  their  system?  These  giant 
overlords,  staggering  under  their  incomes,  are  the 
best  possible  object  lesson  to  an  envious  populace 
that  meanly  admires  them.  Let  the  comedy  play 
itself  out  before  all  eyes. 

He  sees  every  one  of  our  ills  through  the  medium 
which  the  massed  energies  of  the  nation  have  created. 
This  is  business,  everywhere  business.  Our  ambi- 
tions and  our  achievements  are  scaled  to  this  stand- 


A   SOCIALIST   CRITIC  285 

point.  We  organize  our  dollar  getting  so  that  the 
general  estimate  of  success  is  in  terms  of  large  owner- 
ship. This  creates  the  atmosphere  in  which  the 
very  rich,  simply  because  of  riches,  feel  a  prescriptive 
right,  let  us  say,  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate.  One  of 
the  most  recent  to  enter  this  body  is  from  a  great 
state  in  the  West,  one  of  whose  citizens  says  frankly, 

"Well,   is  our  richest  man;   why  shouldn't  he 

go  to  the  Senate?"  It  should  be  the  one  political 
body  beyond  taint  of  suspicion,  yet  some  of  its  high 
places  are  bought  as  if  it  were  a  stock-exchange. 
Business  masteries  have  so  subdued  our  politics  and 
our  politicians  that  they  are  but  the  echo  of  what  the 
stronger  business  men  want. 

What  chance  has  socialism  in  such  a  community  ? 
Mr.  Wells  grows  timid.  Like  a  good  bourgeois,  he 
warns  us  against  our  own  Socialistic  preachers.  It 
is  his  private  faith  that  we  are  without  hope  until  the 
world's  chief  business  is  taken  from  private  hands 
and  private  profit  makers.  The  community  (town, 
city,  government)  must  manage  this  wealth-making 
directly  for  the  good  of  the  people  and  for  all  the 
people.  Yet  when  Mr.  Wells  looks  into  this  same 
business  in  the  United  States,  when  he  examines 
our  politics  and  the  spectre  of  corruption  that  is 
business  on  one  side  and  politics  on  the  other,  he 
shrinks.  Socialism  is  far  too  good  for  America. 
So  busy  have  we  been  in  gathering  dollars  that 
"  nobody  is  left  over  to  watch  the  politician." 
The  boss,  with  his  slavish  army  of  heelers,  has 


286  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

waxed  great  amidst  the  general  laxity.  We  have 
allowed  him  to  become  the  "professional,"  whose 
exclusive  aim  is  personal  profit.  The  pearl  of 
socialism,  says  Mr.  Wells,  is  not  to  be  trusted  to 
such  as  he.  "Under  socialism  all  business  comes 
straight  into  politics  and  has  to  be  managed  by 
selected  officials.  Think  of  giving  Standard  Oil  or 
railroad  interests  to  politicians  as  they  now  are  in 
the  United  States!"  It  strikes  him  as  grotesque. 

And  here,  to  this  author,  is  the  essential  tragedy, 
that  we  are  so  overpoweringly  a  trading  people; 
that  our  distinctions,  ambitions,  energies,  and  edu- 
cation are  so  universally  dedicated  to  the  profit- 
making  ends  of  trade.  These  habits  are  so  nation- 
alized, so  all  pervasive  that  they  cannot  be  kept  out  of 
any  other  part  of  our  life.  It  would  still  be  well  with 
us  if  we  could  keep  the  trader's  instinct  confined  to 
its  own  field,  but  it  is  our  tragedy  that  the  trading 
ardor,  with  its  sister  propensity,  gambling,  invades 
all  other  fields.  Gambling  is  the  sport  instinct  exer- 
cising itself  in  rivalry  against  another,  to  get  some- 
thing for  nothing.  It  is  trade  stripped  of  its  decen- 
cies and  restraints.  Trade  plus  the  license  of  the 
gamester  thus  takes  possession  of  us.  It  first  en- 
croaches upon  politics,  filling  the  convention,  caucus, 
and  lobby  with  deals  and  bargainings.  To  counter 
and  dicker  with  blocks  of  votes  becomes  identical 
with  the  chaffering  of  the  market-place.  The  spoils 
system  is  merely  systematized  trading. 

The  church  no  more  escapes  than  politics.      It 


A   SOCIALIST    CRITIC  287 

has  to  be  commercially  organized  with  clerical 
salaries,  pew-rents,  and  selected  congregations  that 
reflect  to  a  letter  the  social  standards  which  rest  on 
a  scaled  material  prosperity.  The  poor  are  no  more 
wanted  there  than  they  are  at  a  fashionable  dinner. 
From  the  petty  gambling  at  the  church  fair  to  the 
social  consecration  of  bridge  whist,  the  stamp  of  this 
prosperity  is  deep  upon  us.  It  materializes  educa- 
tion, the  theatre,  and  athletics. 

Yet  Mr.  Wells  feels  no  astonishment.  We  are 
cankered  with  "graft,"  but  that  is  inevitable  because 
we  are  a  nation  of  traders,  and  trade  is  in  essence 
overreaching.  If  you  wish  to  see  it  as  it  is,  watch 
the  game  of  poker,  —  "a  sort  of  expressionless  lying 
called  'bluffing.'"  In  its  essential  quality,  trading 
does  not  differ  from  cheating.  "...  the  commer- 
cial ideal  is  to  buy  from  the  needy,  sell  to  the  urgent 
need,  and  get  all  that  can  possibly  be  got  out  of  every 
transaction.  To  do  anything  else  isn't  business  — 
it's  some  other  sort  of  game.  Let  us  look  squarely 
into  the  pretences  of  trading.  The  plain  fact  of  the 
case  is  that  in  trading  for  profit  there  is  no  natural 
line  at  which  legitimate  bargaining  ends  and  cheat- 
ing begins.  The  seller  wants  to  get  above  the  value 
and  the  buyer  below  it.  The  seller  seeks  to  appre- 
ciate, the  buyer  to  depreciate;  and  where  is  there 
room  for  truth  in  that  contest?"  l 

"A  very  scrupulous  man  stops  at  one  point,  a  less  scrupu- 
lous man  at  another;  an  eager,  ambitious  man  may  find  him- 

1  "The  Future  in  America,"  p.  123. 


288  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

self  carried  by  his  own  impetus  very  far.  Too  often  the  least 
scrupulous  wins.  In  all  ages,  among  all  races,  this  taint  in 
trade  has  been  felt.  Modern  Western  Europe,  led  by  Eng- 
land and  America,  has  denied  it  stoutly,  has  glorified  the  trader, 
called  him  a  'merchant  prince,'  wrapped  him  in  the  purple  of 
the  word  'financier,'  bowed  down  before  him.  The  trader 
remains  a  trader,  a  hand  that  clutches,  an  uncreative  brain 
that  lays  snares."  l 

We  have  been  sufficiently  taught  that  the  sharp 
higglings  of  the  market,  the  calculating  strife  between 
buyer  and  seller,  were  attended  by  incidental  evils 
that  take  on  here  and  there  vicious  proportions.  To 
Mr.  Wells  these  distinctions  are  the  pious  hypoc- 
risies by  which  sharpers  cloak  their  thieving.  His 
joyous  tilting  is  not  against  the  flagrance  and  abuses 
of  trade,  but  against  all  trade,  and  the  very  nature  of 
trade.  It  has  been  much  and  long  believed  that  the 
exchange  function  in  trade  —  in  spite  of  excesses  — 
carried  with  it  immense  common  advantages.  Mr. 
Wells  strives  to  free  us  from  this  illusion.  The 
trader,  even  the  most  enterprising  and  honest 
one,  has  only  "an  uncreative  brain."  He  merely 
"clutches"  and  sucks  like  a  parasite. 

All  these  judgments  Mr.  Wells,  of  course,  brought 
with  him.  They  are  a  part  of  his  equipment  as 
Socialist  critic,  and  their  value  is  very  great  for  him 
and  for  us.  They  furnish  him  with  a  standard 
which  he  is  continually  applying  to  our  country. 
He  is  not  criticising  us  alone.  To  the  Socialist, 

1  "The  Future  in  America,"  p.  125. 


A   SOCIALIST   CRITIC  289 

England  is  as  sick  with  graft  as  America.  To  him 
graft  is  an  evil  name  for  about  all  that  England  is, 
commercially.  All  her  stately  manors,  all  her  parks 
and  palaces,  all  her  rent-bearing  forms  of  property 
on  which  her  great  families  fattened  like  parasites, 
are  the  quintessence  of  sponging  and  graft.  The 
only  difference  to  Mr.  Wells,  as  he  says  plainly,  is 
that  Americans  talk  about  their  sins  more  openly 
and  more  vociferously.  That  we  cry  aloud,  is  our 
fiope.  If  England  should  cry  out  about  her  own 
embedded  graft,  there  would  be  more  hope  for  her. 
It  is  our  peculiarity  that  we  are  so  all-in-all  given 
over  to  profit-mongering.  We  are  accurately  the 
counterpart  of  the  great  middle  class  trading  and 
huckstering  England.  We  differ  only  in  this,  that 
we  can  out-hustle  England.  We  are  friskier,  and 
the  dead  hand  of  custom  lies  more  lightly  upon  us. 
But  we  are  the  hammering,  shopkeeping,  middle 
class  of  his  own  countrymen  set  in  freer  and  happier 
conditions  for  our  work.  Voltaire  summarized 
England  in  these  words,  "The  bottom,  dregs ;  the 
top,  the  froth;  and  the  middle,  excellent."  Wells 
agrees  about  the  dregs  and  the  froth,  but  the  poor 
middle  class  has  for  him  no  excellences.  Its  shop- 
keeping  prosperities  are  but  organized  vulgarity 
and  overreaching  of  your  neighbor.  As  for  our- 
selves in  America,  we  have  the  froth,  but  it  is  a  pu- 
trid imitation,  and  the  lees  are  ever  thicker  at  the 
bottom,  while  the  saving  middle  already  becomes 
stale.  We  have  nothing  in  common  with  the  ele- 


290  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

gances  and  responsibilities  of  upper  class  England, 
and  so  far,  very  little  of  the  squalid  deformity  of  her 
lowest  classes. 

"America  is  simply  repeating  the  history  of  the  Lanca- 
shire industrialism  on  a  gigantic  scale,  and  under  an  enormous 
variety  of  forms. 

"But  in  England,  as  the  modern  rich  rise  up,  they  come 
into  a  world  of  gentry  with  a  tradition  of  public  service  and 
authority ;  they  learn  one  by  one  and  assimilate  themselves 
to  the  legend  of  the  governing  class  with  a  sense  of  proprietor- 
ship, which  is  also,  in  its  humanly  limited  way,  a  sense  of  duty 
to  the  state. 

"America,  on  the  other  hand,  had  no  effectual  'governing 
class ' ;  there  has  been  no  such  modification,  no  clouding  of  the 
issue.  Its  rich,  to  one's  superficial  inspection,  do  seem  to  lop 
out,  swell  up  into  an  immense  consumption  and  power  and 
inanity,  develop  no  sense  of  public  duties,  remain  winners  of 
a  strange  game  they  do  not  criticise,  concerned  now  only  to 
hold  and  intensify  their  winnings. 

"This  is  the  fact  to  which  America  is  slowly  awaking  at  the 
present  time.  The  American  community  is  discovering  a 
secular  extinction  of  opportunity,  and  the  appearance  of  powers 
against  which  individual  enterprise  and  competition  are  hope- 
less. Enormous  sections  of  the  American  public  are  losing 
their  faith  in  any  personal  chance  of  growing  rich  and  truly 
free,  and  are  developing  the  consciousness  of  an  expropriated 
class."  l 

"A  secular  extinction  of  opportunity!"  2  This  is 
one  of  his  easy  literary  felicities  to  show  us  that  the 

1  "The  Future  in  America,"  p.  80. 

1  Matthew  Arnold's  statement  is  as  follows:  "England  dis- 
tributes itself  into  Barbarians,  Philistines,  and  Populace.  America 
is  just  ourselves,  with  the  Barbarians  quite  left  out,  and  the  Popu- 


A   SOCIALIST   CRITIC  291 

froth  at  the  top  and  the  dregs  at  the  bottom  are 
already  becoming  indistinguishable  from  the  middle. 
If  we  reply  that  very  many  of  our  ultra-rich  do 
develop  a  sense  of  public  duty,  that  they  dower 
education,  art  museums,  hospitals,  institutions  for 
scientific  research,  on  a  scale  unknown  and  un- 
matched among  other  people,  our  Socialist  author 
has  his  answer,  Yes,  there  never  was  such  free- 
handed outpouring,  but  it  is  too  unrelated,  too  in- 
discriminate, too  pauperizing.  One  most  princely 
gift  bestower  is  thus  described :  — 

"And  through  the  multitude  of  lesser,  though  still  mighty, 
givers,  comes  that  colossus  of  property,  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie, 
the  jubilee  plunger  of  beneficence,  that  rosy,  gray-haired,  nim- 
ble little  figure,  going  to  and  fro  between  two  continents,  scat- 
tering library  buildings  as  if  he  sowed  wild  oats,  buildings 
that  may  or  may  not  have  some  educational  value,  if  presently 
they  are  reorganized  and  properly  stocked  with  books.  Anon 
he  appalls  the  thrifty  burgesses  of  Dunfermline  with  vast  and 
uncongenial  responsibilities  of  expenditure;  anon  he  precipi- 
tates the  library  of  the  late  Lord  Acton  upon  our  embarrassed 
Mr.  Morley;  anon  he  pauperizes  the  students  of  Scotland. 
He  diffuses  his  monument  throughout  the  English-speaking 
lands,  amid  circumstances  of  the  most  flagrant  publicity;  the 
receptive  learned,  the  philanthropic  noble,  bow  in  expectant 
swaths  before  him."  1 

lace  nearly.  This  would  leave  the  Philistines  for  the  great  bulk 
of  the  nation;  a  livelier  sort  of  Philistines  than  our  Philistine  mid- 
dle class  which  made  and  peopled  the  United  States  —  a  livelier 
sort  of  Philistine  than  ours,  and  with  the  pressure  and  the  false 
ideal  of  our  Barbarians  taken  away,  but  left  all  the  more  to  himself 
and  to  have  his  full  swing."  —  "  Civilization  in  the  United  States," 
p.  79. 

1  "The  Future  in  America,"  p.  94. 


AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 


Thus  one  by  one  the  pedestalled  gods  in  our  Val- 
halla are  "called  down."  There  is  no  billingsgate, 
no  rough  handling,  but  only  a  good-humored  weigh- 
ing and  measuring  of  objects  that  are  found  wanting. 
They  are  not  even  cast  aside,  but  put  back  in  their 
places  as  if  this  kindly  iconoclast  said  to  us:  "Let 
them  remain  until  you  yourselves  find  them  out. 
Soon  enough  they  must  be  replaced  by  quite  other 
symbols." 

The  American  reader  who  adds  to  "The  Future 
in  America"  the  later  volume,  "New  Worlds  for 
Old,"  will  have  a  message  as  insinuating  and  per- 
suasive as  any  that  the  literature  of  modern  Social- 
ism has  to  offer. 

We  watch  his  easy  and  sustained  flight  with  more 
willing  admiration  because  his  truth-telling  is  as 
freely  directed  against  collectivist  frailties  as  it  is 
against  the  present  system.  He  is  indeed  rather  the 
enfant  terrible  in  the  house  of  the  Socialist. 

Your  revolutionist  is  in  his  eyes  an  undisciplined 
and  half-baked  person.  Neither  will  Mr.  Wells 
have  any  nonsense  about  a  world  sinking  into  deeper 
disorders  and  disgraces.  Life,  in  spite  of  all  draw- 
backs, is  moving  on  and  up.  It  grows  sweeter  as  it 
lengthens. 

This  quick-witted  observer  sees  more  and  sees 
better  than  scores  of  others  who  have  stayed  longer 
on  our  shores  and  travelled  farther.  His  social  and 
scientific  interests  furnish  an  equipment  for  observ- 
ing society  as  it  just  now  exists  in  the  United  States. 


A   SOCIALIST   CRITIC  293 

Our  material  strength  and  our  political  weakness  are 
both  phases  of  the  capitalism  which  has  been  devel- 
oped to  its  highest  point.  There  is  nothing  that  so 
fashions  our  entire  life,  religion,  manners,  morals, 
press,  and  education  as  this  same  capitalism,  and  it 
is  precisely  this  central  and  determining  force  which 
the  trained  Socialist  makes  his  study.  The  one 
needed  lesson  that  modern  socialism  has  for  us  is  its 
criticism.  The  logic  of  its  full  and  positive  pro- 
gramme, we  should  do  well  to  hold  at  arm's  length, 
but  its  strictures  upon  the  present  business  and 
social  organization  contain  truths  that  only  the  very 
blind  will  ignore. 

The  most  constructive  statesmanship  of  our  time 
has  boldly  taken  its  hints  from  the  Socialist.  He 
may  mistake  much,  he  may  be  wild  in  his  exaggera- 
tions, he  may  draw  crazy  inferences  even  as  other 
speculators,  but  he  has  this  advantage  —  his  spe- 
cialty of  thought  and  study  is  concentrated  upon 
what  has  come  to  be  overmastering  in  this  country : 
our  business  methods,  habits,  and  ambitions,  and 
the  devious  ways  through  which  these  react  upon 
our  individual  and  collective  life.  Moulded  after 
these  material  patterns  are  the  prevailing  ideals, 
the  scrutiny  of  which  are  his  main  study. 

Mr.  Wells  is  one  of  the  most  luminous  as  he  is 
one  of  the  most  fearless  of  these  social  arbiters.  In 
"The  Future  in  America"  we  meet  the  Socialist 
who  knows  a  good  deal  about  the  dry  economics  of 
his  subject,  but  knows  it  so  well  as  to  clothe  it  in  the 
imagery  and  the  imagination  of  the  poet. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

SIGNS  OF  PROGRESS 

THAT  our  "progress"  is  manifest  and  assured  is 
perhaps  the  most  confident  of  American  opinions. 
A  French  critic  asks :  "  Why  has  the  France  of  to-day 
such  sickly  doubts  about  herself,  while  America, 
in  spite  of  her  prolific  sins,  has  the  boisterous  faith 
that  does  not  really  fear  any  danger  or  check  upon 
her  forward  movement?  Even  if  your  American 
talks  gloomily,  it  is  all  upon  the  surface.  He  is  at 
heart  a  robust  and  reckless  optimist." 

This  optimism,  of  which  everybody  is  proud,  gets 
sadly  mixed  up  with  most  arguments  for  progress. 
It  is  the  justification  of  optimism  that  has  to  be 
first  shown.  No  one  is  quite  equal  to  the  task, 
because  final  proofs  of  progress  cannot  be  given 
except  in  terms  of  character  or  of  happiness  and 
conscious  well-being.  But  happiness !  Who  shall 
define  it  in  its  "higher"  and  "lower"  scale?  It 
has  been  the  despair  of  dialecticians  wherever  this 
subject  has  been  discussed. 

I  recall  the  sentence,  "The  age  that  has  the  most 
deserved  and  most  diffused  happiness  is  the  age 
of  highest  progress."  But  who  shall  prove  that 
the  twentieth  century  is  happier  than  the  fifteenth? 

294 


SIGNS    OF   PROGRESS  295 

or  that  the  days  of  John  Milton  were  happier  than 
those  of  Socrates?  The  reign  of  the  Borgias  in 
Italy  seems  to  us  full  of  all  sorts  of  terrors  for  aver- 
age men,  but  the  studies  of  Taine  led  him  to  believe 
it  a  happier  age  than  ours.  He  believed  this  be- 
cause the  Italians  showed  at  that  time  so  much 
•vitality.  It  was  the  age  of  "magnificent  and  daring 
action."  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  told  that 
India  has  lost  her  vitality,  and  with  it  the  power 
of  great  activity.  Yet  a  Hindoo  scholar  told  an 
audience  in  Boston  that  the  India  he  knew  was 
far  happier  than  we  of  the  United  States  because 
she  was  uncursed  by  our  feverish  activity.  Quiet- 
ness and  meditation,  with  the  habit  of  not  wanting 
too  many  things,  were  to  him  indispensable  to  hap- 
piness. We  are  likely  to  reject  this  Oriental  test, 
but  the  reasons  we  should  give  would  doubtless 
seem  to  this  Eastern  gentleman  merely  to  beg  the 
question. 

We  are  thus  driven  to  other  and  secondary  tests 
of  progress.  This  is  here  justified  because  it  is 
with  these  that  our  critics  are  for  the  most  part 
concerned.  They  have  to  do  chiefly  with  the  con- 
ditions of  social  growth  upon  which  "deserved  hap- 
piness" hi  part  at  least  depends.  The  points 
raised  by  our  critics  enable  us  to  discern  changes 
in  these  conditions  that  have  very  vital  connection 
with  social  growth. 

I  select  first  that  part  of  the  country  about  which 
the  visitors  were  most  in  despair,  the  South.  Nearly 


296  AS   OTHERS    SEE    US 

thirty  of  them  go  there  largely  to  study  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery  and  its  social  effects.  They  are 
generally  charmed  by  the  manners  and  hospitality 
which  inspire  many  cordial  pages.  Progress  or 
the  hope  of  it,  few  of  them  see.  Mrs.  Stowe  never 
wrote  a  line  so  withering  against  the  results  of 
slavery  as  many  of  these  foreign  onlookers.  That 
the  very  roots  of  industrial  and  political  society 
under  our  form  of  government  were  already  poisoned 
by  the  reactions  of  slave  labor,  —  giving  the  whites 
contempt  for  honorable  work,  and  turning  to  ridi- 
cule our  whole  theory  of  political  equality,  was  the 
theme  on  which  much  high-wrought  feeling  was 
expressed. 

That  it  would  end  all  dreams  of  having  one  na- 
tional life  was  believed  by  most  of  them.  Then, 
each  after  his  own  temperament  speculates  as  to 
the  shapes  the  ruins  will  finally  assume.  A  few 
make  good  guesses,  but  the  results,  as  we  now  see 
them,  would  have  amazed  all  these  prophets.  Social 
destinies  are  still  deep  in  the  shadows,  because  the 
"tragedy  of  color"  has  only  changed  its  form. 
Yet  there  is  no  misconception  so  fundamental  as 
to  make  this  negro  tradition  in  our  day  the  deter- 
mining or  primary  fact  in  the  future  of  the  South. 
The  essential  evil  of  slavery  was  that  the  negro  as 
slave  gave  shape  and  direction  to  the  -whole  indus- 
trial life  and,  therefore,  largely  to  the  political  life. 
Desperate  as  it  now  may  be,  the  whole  negro  ques- 
tion has  become  secondary,  while  the  entire  new 


MAX  O'RELL  (PAUL  BLOUET) 
Author  of  "  Brother  Jonathan  " 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  297 

order  of  free  industrial  life  is  primary  and  creative. 
This  seems  to  me  the  most  impressive  fact  in  the 
South. 

Soon  after  the  evils  of  "reconstruction,"  these 
changes  in  business  structure  and  method  began. 
Statistical  measurements  are  at  last  accessible 
that  are  wholly  trustworthy.  From  a  date  so  re- 
cent as  1900,  her  products  leap  in  value  from  less 
than  one-half  billion  to  nearly  two  and  a  half  billions 
of  dollars,  cotton  spindles  from  six  to  ten  mill- 
ions, her  assessed  property  from  5266  millions  to 
8000  millions,  her  bank  deposits  from  87  millions 
in  1896  to  171  millions  in  1906  —  this  is  the  ma- 
terial uprising  of  the  South  from  the  gaunt  and 
awful  poverty  in  which  the  war  left  her.  But  the 
growth  of  her  educational  purpose  and  achieve- 
ment, her  enlarged  recognition  of  the  unities  of 
our  national  commonwealth,  are  still  more  impres- 
sive than  all  the  climbing  figures  of  her  industrial 
prosperity.  No  one  can  travel  there  without  seeing 
that  the  Southland  tingles  with  new  life  which 
breaks  through  all  crusts  and  all  restraints.  Her 
one  grief  is  the  lingering  tradition  of  the  slave. 
Yet,  in  the  whole  best  side  of  that  race,  the  progress 
as  figured  in  property  acquirement  or  by  sacrifice 
for  learning  is  as  hopeful  as  any  page  of  recent 
race  history  in  the  world. 

Nor  is  it  for  a  moment  to  be  supposed  that  this 
special  race  burden  is  solitary  or  peculiar  to  the 
South.  Largely  a  question  of  color  and  inter- 


298  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

mingling  numbers,  it  faces  and  tests  every  civilized 
nation.  It  is  the  supreme  lesson  that  all  people 
have  to  learn  together.  Any  one  who  reads  Olm- 
sted's  masterly  studies  of  the  South  before  the  war, 
together  with  the  pages  of  that  sagacious  journalist, 
E.  L.  Godkin,  a  few  years  later,  can  test  the  strides 
the  South  has  taken.  Better  than  either  of  these 
writers,  the  Southerner  Walter  H.  Page  knows  this 
subject.  He  knows  it  the  better  because  he  knows 
the  North  so  well.  Returning  from  a  ten  weeks' 
trip,  he  compares  the  gains  made  largely  within  a 
dozen  years.  Hear  his  judgment :  — 

"I  doubt  if  anywhere  in  the  world  there  has  been  so  rapid 
a  change  in  what  may  be  called  the  fundamentals  of  good 
living  and  of  sound  thinking  and  of  cheerful  work,  as  the 
change  that  has  taken  place  these  ten  years  in  many  of  these 
rural  districts.  Many  a  farmer  who  was  in  debt  to  his  '  factor ' 
now  has  money  in  the  bank,  a  bank  that  itself  did  not  exist 
ten  years  ago.  The  inherent  good  nature  of  the  people  ap- 
proaches something  like  hilarity.  If  you  direct  the  con- 
versation toward  prosperity,  they  will  crack  jokes  with  you 
about  the  needy  condition  of  Wall  Street,  and  remind  you 
that  their  banks  have  money  lent  at  interest  in  New  York." 

A  dozen  years  ago,  the  talk  of  the  Southerner  was 
continually  about  the  romance  and  drama  of  the 
past.  To-day  it  is  not  tradition,  not  even  the  terrors 
of  Reconstruction,  that  hold  his  attention.  It  is  the 
present  and  the  future.  Mr.  Page  puts  the  spirit  of 
the  new  change  into  this  incident :  — 

"I  asked  a  young  man  at  one  of  the  Southern  schools  of 
technology  why  he  chose  this  training  rather  than  training 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  299 

for  one  of  the  older  professions.  'My  grandfather,'  said 
he,  'was  a  mighty  man  in  theology  in  his  day.  He  knocked 
out  his  opponents,  and  he  battered  the  devil.  My  father 
was  a  lawyer  and  a  soldier.  He  fought  the  United  States 
by  argument  and  in  war.  I  notice  that  the  devil  and  the 
United  States  are  both  doing  business  yet.  I  made  up  my 
mind,  therefore,  that  I  would  change  the  family  job  and  do 
what  I  can  to  build  mills  and  roads  in  Georgia.'" 

It  should  be  added  that  Mr.  Page  sees  even  greater 
encouragement  in  the  renaissance  of  education. 

Since  1896, 1  have  been  nine  times  into  the  South, 
and  I  do  not  believe  these  words  contain  a  single 
accent  of  exaggeration.  With  the  skill  of  a  good 
observer,  Mr.  Page  does  not  take  his  reckoning 
chiefly  from  the  favored  border  states,  but  rather 
from  the  lower  South  where  the  difficulties  have 
been  greatest.  As  one  turns  back  to  the  gloomy 
conjuring  of  the  older  visitors;  as  one  rereads 
the  shadowed  pages  in  Dickens  and  Abdy,  one 
seems  to  ask  for  a  stronger  word  than  "progress" 
to  tell  the  tale.1 

We 'must  of  course  be  warned  against  the  easy 
treachery  of  gauging  real  growth  in  material  esti- 
mates. But  these  are  not  to  be  omitted  if  they  are 
associated  with  other  facts. 

That  the  man  who  travelled  yesterday  in  an  easy 

1  In  spite  of  much  present  opinion,  the  South  was  not  happy 
under  slavery.  The  most  far-seeing  of  the  critics  constantly  note 
the  deep  currents  of  unhappiness  which  that  institution  brought  to 
the  best  men  and,  above  all,  to  the  best  women  of  the  South. 


30O  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

chair  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia  in  an  hour 
and  forty  minutes  was  any  happier  than  Mr.  Jerrold 
who  bumped  through,  in  a  wagon  with  no  springs, 
in  twenty-three  hours,  we  cannot  prove,  because 
we  have  no  test  for  the  sensations  of  either  traveller. 
That  Mr.  Jerrold  had  to  get  out  frequently  to 
help  boost  the  stage  from  the  ruts;  that  he  arrived 
stiff  and  thick  with  mud,  does  not  prove  that  he 
was  without  enjoyment  on  that  trip.  The  man  in 
the  plush  chair  may  have  been  more  disturbed  by 
a  delay  of  fifteen  minutes  than  the  earlier  traveller 
was  by  a  delay  of  four  hours.  Yet  the  change 
from  twenty-three  hours  to  two  hours,  from  the 
bumping  cart  to  the  plush  chair,  is  an  improve- 
ment which  goes  down  on  the  side  of  progress. 
The  added  comfort  is  no  mean  gain,  but  far  more 
are  the  economies  hi  time  and  human  strength. 
When  Madison  was  elected  President  in  November, 
1812,  Kentucky  heard  the  news  in  the  following 
February.  This  fact  means  much  more  than  physi- 
cal difficulties  of  transportation.  It  represents  an 
average  of  mental  lethargy  and  indifference  which 
we  have  outgrown. 

That  a  few  years  later  than  this,  it  should  have 
cost  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  to  carry 
a  ton  of  coal  from  Pittsburg  to  Philadelphia,  is 
mainly  a  physical  fact.  It  has  quite  other  signifi- 
cance, that  when  our  first  critic  was  here,  a  Phil- 
adelphia publisher  should  be  seriously  advised 
not  to  start  a  paper  in  that  city,  because  there  was 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  30! 

already  one  in  Boston.  There  were  those  who 
gravely  questioned  whether  the  country  could  sup- 
port two  newspapers.  It  is  in  the  same  class  with 
the  latter  fact  that  in  a  prominent  college  one 
professor  could  teach  without  protest  botany, 
Latin,  chemistry,  mineralogy,  midwifery,  and  sur- 
gery. At  this  time  the  clergy  in  Boston  were  thrown 
into  a  frenzy  of  moral  revolt  by  the  announcement 
that  two  of  Shakespeare's  greatest  plays,  " Hamlet" 
and  "Othello,"  were  to  be  presented  on  the  stage. 

Our  study  began  with  a  whole  order  of  social 
phenomena  of  this  character.  One  of  our  critics 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  went 
from  Baltimore  to  Philadelphia.  He  paid  six 
cents  per  mile  on  the  stage,  two  dollars  and  twenty- 
five  cents  per  day  at  hotels,  and  was  three  days  on 
the  way.  Another  wished  to  go  from  New  York 
to  Albany.  He  watched  the  papers  three  days 
for  a  boat.  When  it  was  finally  announced,  there 
was  a  further  delay  of  thirty-six  hours  because  of 
the  weather.  He  had  besides  to  take  his  own 
bedding  and  food. 

Here  is  a  description  of  a  trip  from  New  York 
to  Philadelphia:  — 

"We  had  about  twenty  miles  down  the  Delaware  to  reach 
Philadelphia.  The  captain,  who  had  a  most  provoking 
tongue,  was  a  boy  about  eighteen  years  of  age.  He  and 
a  few  companions  despatched  a  dozen  or  eighteen  bottles  of 
porter.  We  ran  three  different  times  against  other  vessels 
that  were  coming  up  the  stream.  The  women  and  children 
lay  all  night  on  the  bare  boards  of  the  cabin  floor.  .  .  .  We 


302  AS    OTHERS    SEE   US 

reached  Arch  Street  wharf  about  eight  o'clock  on  the  Wednes- 
day morning,  having  been  about  sixteen  hours  on  a  voyage 
of  twenty  miles." 

The  Scotch  Wilson,  who  had  been  nearly  as 
severe  on  New  England  hotels,  thus  describes  those 
on  a  trip  through  the  South. 

'"The  taverns  are  the  most  desolate  and  beggarly  im- 
aginable ;  bare,  bleak,  and  dirty  walls,  one  or  two  old  broken 
chairs  and  a  bench  form  all  the  furniture.  The  white  females 
seldom  make  their  appearance.  At  supper  you  sit  down  to 
a  meal,  the  very  sight  of  which  is  sufficient  to  deaden  the 
most  eager  appetite,  and  you  are  surrounded  by  half  a  dozen 
dirty,  half-naked  blacks,  male  and  female,  whom  any  man 
of  common  scent  might  smell  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off.  The 
house  itself  is  raised  upon  props  four  or  five  feet,  and  the 
space  below  is  left  open  for  the  hogs,  with  whose  charming  vo- 
cal performance  the  wearied  traveller  is  serenaded  the  whole 
night  long.' " 

An  Englishman  with  wife  and  child  goes  from 
Albany  to  Niagara  Falls.  The  cheapest  con- 
veyance he  could  get  cosi  him  one  hundred  and 
fifteen  dollars,  and  they  arrived  "half  skinned" 
from  the  journey. 

Yet  it  is  neither  the  slowness,  discomfort,  or  ex- 
pense of  this  early  travelling  which  tests  most  fully 
the  improvement.  It  is  rather  the  safety.  Arfed- 
son  wrote  in  1832 :  — 

"A  traveller  intending  to  proceed  thence  (from  Augusta, 
S.C.)  by  land  to  New  Orleans  is  earnestly  recommended 
to  bid  adieu  to  all  comforts  on  leaving  Augusta,  and  make 
the  necessary  preparations  for  a  hard  and  rough  campaign. 
If  he  has  a  wife  and  children  unprovided  for,  and  to  whom 


SIGNS    OF   PROGRESS  303 

he  has  not  the  means  of  leaving  a  suitable  legacy,  let  him 
by  all  means  be  careful  to  insure  his  life  to  the  highest  amount 
the  office  will  take." 

In  1834-1835  Miss  Martineau  found  steamboat 
travelling  in  the  West  extremely  dangerous:  — 

"I  was  rather  surprised  at  the  cautions  I  received  through- 
out the  South  about  choosing  wisely  among  the  Mississippi 
steamboats;  and  at  the  question  gravely  asked,  as  I  was 
going  aboard,  whether  I  had  a  life-preserver  with  me.  I 
found  that  all  my  acquaintances  on  board  had  furnished 
themselves  with  life-preservers,  and  my  surprise  ceased  when 
we  passed  boat  after  boat  on  the  river  delayed  or  deserted 
on  account  of  some  accident." 

No  man  who  ever  came  to  us  had  more  scientific 
caution  in  his  statements  than  Sir  Charles  Lyell. 
As  late  as  1850,  on  his  second  journey  of  investiga- 
tion, he  said :  — 

"After  comparing  the  risk  it  seems  to  be  more  dangerous 
to  travel  by  land,  in  a  new  country,  than  by  river  steamers, 
and  some  who  have  survived  repeated  journeyings  in  stage- 
coaches show  us  many  scars.  The  judge  who  escorted  my 
wife  to  Natchez  informed  her  that  he  had  been  upset  no  less 
than  thirteen  times." 

I  purposely  select  this  test,  because  we  are  at  last 
being  shocked  into  some  sense  of  social  disgrace  by 
the  monthly  horrors  of  our  railway  butcheries. 

Our  accident  list  is  now  as  inexcusable  as  it  is 
appalling,  but  man  for  man  and  mile  for  mile, 
travel  is  far  safer  than  in  the  year  1800,  and  in  the 
half  century  that  followed.  Until  within  a  genera- 
tion, there  seems  to  have  been  no  general  public 


304  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

sensitiveness  whatever  as  to  these  dangers.  This 
growth  of  sensitiveness  to  what  is  cruel  or  socially 
harmful  seems  to  me  fundamental.  But  first  let  us 
select  from  the  witnesses  other  hints  of  the  condi- 
tions of  a  larger  individual  and  social  life. 

There  are  many  perfectly  trustworthy  comments 
to  show  us  the  rise  of  wages  that  lifts  the  whole 
standard  of  comfort  in  the  community.  The  builders 
of  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal,  in  1829,  imported 
workmen  for  twelve  dollars  a  month.  The  em- 
ployers who  paid  the  passage  got  in  addition  three 
months'  labor  for  nothing.  There  are  now  classes 
of  Italian  workmen  among  us  who  earn  enough 
hi  six  months  to  make  it  worth  while  to  pay  their 
own  passage  twice  across  the  Atlantic,  and  leave 
in  their  pockets  more  than  these  laborers  of  1829 
got  in  the  whole  year.  In  1907  I  found  Italians 
in  a  California  quarry  earning  $4.00  and  $5.00 
daily  for  less  than  nine  hours'  work. 

At  the  present  moment  Italians  are  on  strike  in 
New  York  for  more  per  hour  than  they  got  in  South 
Italy  per  day,  and  for  nearly  three  times  as  much 
as  Chevalier  found  Irishmen  at  work  for  in  1834. 
This  careful  economist  says  he  found  a  good  deal 
of  the  hardest  work  done  for  sixty  cents  a  day. 
At  about  this  time  women  in  the  Lowell  mills 
worked  from  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  till  seven  at 
night  for  fifty  cents  a  day.  As  compared  with  Eng- 
lish wages,  Godley  finds  even  this  surprisingly  high. 

In  1834  there  was  a  strike  among  the  men  doing 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  305 

the  heavy  work  on  Philadelphia  wharves.  They 
worked  from  six  to  six.  I  cannot  learn  what  they 
asked,  but  when 'the  employers  met,  they  offered 
one  dollar  a  day  for  work  from  sunrise  to  sunset. 
The  men  accepted  it.  Carpenters  were  paid  there 
one  dollar  and  a  quarter  for  ten  hours'  work.  In 
a  small  country  town  in  New  Hampshire  I  cannot 
now  get  a  local  carpenter  for  less  than  $2.50  for 
nine  hours. 

I  have  seen  Slovak  peasants  doing  work  about 
our  rolling-mills  for  $1.50  per  day  who  never  get 
beyond  thirty  cents  in  their  own  country  and  for 
nearly  half  the  year  received  less  than  twenty-five 
cents. 

From  Seattle  to  Los  Angeles  one  finds  plenty  of 
Orientals  whose  daily  wage  at  home  had  been  less 
than  twelve  cents.  They  land  in  Americanized 
Hawaii  where  they  soon  receive  $18  a  month.  As 
they  pass  to  Oregon  and  California,  they  are  found 
working  for  $35,  $40,  and  $50  a  month. 

Thirty  years  ago  in  the  South,  a  Frenchman 
notes  that  negroes  who  can  be  said  to  be  "emerging" 
are  receiving  forty  cents  a  day.  The  larger  con- 
structive industry,  like  the  railways,  is  now  tempt- 
ing them  from  the  old  agricultural  standards  with 
wages  at  least  twice  and  often  three  times  as  high 
as  in  1870.  This  higher  wage  is  much  more  than 
a  material  thing.  It  is  the  open  door  to  freedom 
from  desperate  and  slavish  indebtedness  to  the 
truck-store. 


306  AS   OTHERS    SEE    US 

The  year  1834  is,  I  think,  the  time  when  men 
agitating  for  ten  hours  in  Boston  were  said  to  be 
"agitators."  The  city  authorities  refused  to  allow 
them  to  have  a  hall  even  to  discuss  the  issue  before 
the  public.  In  1835  the  bakers  in  Philadelphia 
struck  against  working  "more  than  eighteen  hours 
a  day."  There  was  also  a  strike  of  sewing  women 
against  a  wage  scale  of  seventy-two  cents  at  its  low- 
est, and  at  its  highest  one  dollar  and  twelve  cents, 
per  -week. 

Of  the  poorer  workmen,  McMaster  says :  — 

"Their  houses  were  meaner,  their  food  coarser,  their  wages 
were,  despite  the  depreciation  that  has  gone  on  in  the  value  of 
money,  lower  by  one-half  than  at  present.  A  man  who  per- 
formed what  would  now  be  called  unskilled  labor,  who  sawed 
wood,  who  dug  ditches,  who  mended  roads,  who  mixed  mortar, 
who  carried  boards  to  the  carpenter  and  bricks  to  the  mason 
or  helped  to  cut  hay  in  harvest  time,  usually  received  as  the 
fruit  of  his  daily  toil  two  shillings." 

The  man  who  "mixed  mortar"  and  "carried 
bricks  to  the  mason"  is  now  called  a  hod-carrier. 
Within  sight  of  where  I  am  now  writing  a  building 
is  going  up.  Every  hod-carrier  gets  daily  three 
dollars  and  works  but  eight  hours.  In  1825  this 
class  was  getting  seventy-five  cents  for  a  twelve- 
hour  day. 

The  usual  reply  to  this  is,  "But  they  could  then 
buy  so  much  more  for  their  money!"  The  state- 
ment unqualified  is  not  true.  Rent  and  a  very  narrow 
range  of  foods  were  then,  of  course,  far  cheaper,  but 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  307 

to-day  the  average  workman  demands  and  gets  for 
his  expenditure  at  least  ten  things  where  he  then 
got  two.  Including  these,  he  gets  far  more  for  his 
money.  A  large  part  of  his  house  furnishings, 
as  well  as  foods  for  the  table,  did  not  then  exist. 
It  is  to  this  far  better  housing  and  improved  variety 
of  diet  that  another  step  in  progress  for  the  masses 
of  the  people  is  clearly  seen  in  these  critical  records. 

Among  the  few  best  tests  of  social  bettering, 
what  is  fairer  than  the  health  of  the  community? 

It  would  weary  the  reader  if  I  were  to  put  down 
a  tithe  of  the  opinions  on  health  and  its  conditions 
in  the  United  States  during  the  first  decades  of  the 
last  century.  It  is  only  the  recent  critic  who  com- 
ments on  the  good  health  of  the  American  woman. 
Until  the  present  generation  it  was  as  common  to  dis- 
course on  our  ill  health  (this  chiefly  of  the  women) 
as  to  note  the  use  of  the  rocking-chair.  The  phi- 
losopher Volney  is  very  curious  about  it  and  studies 
our  diet  and  habits  of  eating,  drinking,  effects  of 
climate,  etc.,  to  account  for  the  phenomenon.  He 
does  not  distinguish  between  the  men  and  the 
women.  His  conclusion  is  in  these  words:  "I  will 
venture  to  say  that  if  a  prize  were  proposed  for  the 
scheme  of  a  regimen  most  calculated  to  injure  the 
stomach,  the  teeth,  and  the  health  in  general,  no 
better  could  be  invented  than  that  of  the  Americans." 
The  acute  Chastellux  says  that  above  all  other 
people  we  "heap  indigestions  one  on  another," 
and  "to  the  poor,  relaxed,  and  wearied  stomach, 


308  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

they  add  Madeira,  rum,  French  brandy,  gin,  or 
malt  spirits,  which  complete  the  ruin  of  the  nervous 
system." 

James  Sterling  reaches  this  conclusion  as  to  the 
cause  of  such  prevailing  ill  health  as  he  found: 
"The  deepest-rooted  cause  of  American  disease  is 
the  overworking  of  the  brain  and  the  overexcitement 
of  the  nervous  system." 

A  Russian  diplomatist,  P.  I.  Poletika,  here  in 
1810,  1811,  1812,  and  again  in  1818,  published  an 
excellent  book,  "Aperc^i."  He  has  great  admira- 
tion for  the  young  American  women,  but  says  they 
are  so  delicate  ("sifrble  et  si  passagbre")  that  they 
seem  on  the  edge  of  invalidism.  He  attributes  the 
lack  of  health  to  our  climate.1 

Alexander  Mackay,  in  1846,  says  of  our  women : 
"They  are,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  overdelicate 
and  languid ;  a  defect  chiefly  superinduced  by  their 
want  of  exercise." 

These  among  scores.  Nor  need  we  trust  in  this 
to  foreign  sightseers.  There  is  plenty  of  undeniable 
testimony  from  our  own  authentic  documents. 
Adams,  in  his  first  volume,2  writes:  "The  misery 
of  nervous  prostration,  which  wore  out  generation 
after  generation  of  women  and  children  and  left  a 
tragedy  in  every  log  cabin." 

Of  our  whole  frontier  life  he  says:  "The  chance 
of  being  shot  or  scalped  by  Indians  was  hardly 
worth  considering  when  compared  with  the  cer- 
J  p.  154.  2  Hist,  of  the  U.  S.,  p.  58. 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  309 

tainty  of  malarial  fever,  or  the  strange  disease  called 
milk-sickness,  or  the  still  more  depressing  home- 
sickness." 1 

It  was  thought  necessary  by  most  of  the  early 
travellers  to  see  life  up  and  down  the  Mississippi, 
or  through  the  thinly  populated  settlements.  To 
find  a  healthy-looking  woman  was  a  surprise.  It 
was  usual  to  say  that  climate  and  "nervous  strain" 
play  their  part,  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  meagre 
family  income  could  not  supply  an  adequate  and 
varied  diet.  Ignorance  about  such  diet,  as  about 
all  sanitary  measures,  was  no  less  a  cause.  That 
the  standard  of  vigor  has  improved  in  the  sixty 
years  since  Sir  Charles  Lyell's  comments  is  about 
as  certain  as  that  our  population  has  increased. 

Inseparable  from  this  health  improvement  of 
the  women  is  the  observed  improvement  in  the 
speaking  voice.  One  could  easily  collect  a  thick 
volume  on  the  disagreeable  quality  of  the  American 
voice.  Among  all  the  earlier  visitors,  there  is  not 
the  least  disagreement  on  this  point.  There  is 
much  wonder  as  to  the  causes  that  can  have  brought 
this  about.  Climate  is  oftenest  mentioned.  Also 
"nervous  strain  and  consequent  depression."  The 
necessity  of  straining  the  voice  in  "calling  for  men- 
folk to  come  to  dinner."  The  women,  it  is  said, 
thus  get  a  harsh  quality  which  was  imitated  by  the 
children.  "Incipient  catarrh,"  "prevailing  stomach 
trouble,"  "constant  hurrying  and  anxiety,"  are 

1  Adams,  Vol.  I,  p.  58. 


310  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

other  guesses.  All  the  causes  are  beyond  our 
knowledge,  but  it  is,  I  believe,  fairly  clear  that 
some  generations  of  nervous  ill  health  goes  far 
to  account  for  this  lack  of  resonance  and  sweetness 
in  "the  American  voice."  Miss  Martineau  grieves 
much  over  this  defect  and  is  one  of  the  few  to  trace 
it  to  ill  health.  She  says :  — 

"A  great  unknown  pleasure  remains  to  be  experienced  by 
the  Americans  in  the  well-modulated,  gentle,  healthy,  cheerful 
voices  of  women.  It  is  incredible  that  there  should  not,  in 
all  the  time  to  come,  be  any  other  alternative  than  that  which 
now  exists,  between  a  whine  and  a  twang.  When  the  health 
of  the  American  women  improves,  their  voices  will  improve."  x 

Two  recent  critics  express  surprise  that  they 
find  everywhere  in  the  United  States  so  many  people 
with  a  speaking  tone  "as  agreeable  as  anywhere  in 
Europe."  They  speak  of  it  as  beginning  and  ex- 
tending, not  yet  as  commonly  prevailing.  It  is 
very  recent  that  we  were  conscious  enough  of  the 
blemish  to  admit  its  existence.  Foreign  travel, 
the  presence  of  certain  nationalities  among  our 
immigrants,  the  teaching  of  singing  and  voice 
training  hi  the  schools,  have  so  far  aroused  this 
recognition  that  the  way  to  its  healing  slowly  opens 
before  us.  We  shall  soon  have  sense  enough  to 
"standardize"  voice  quality:  first  of  all  for  teachers. 
No  teacher  with  a  harsh,  nasal,  or  "complaining" 
voice  should  be  allowed  to  enter  a  schoolroom.2 

1  "Society  in  America,"  Vol.  II,  p.  200. 

2 1  am  told  that  this  has  already  a  definite  beginning. 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  31 1 

A  little  later  we  shall  not  allow  boys  with  snarling 
or  grating  tones  to  shout  their  wares  on  the  railroad 
train  or  to  hawk  papers  in  the  streets. 

There  was  much  truth  in  a  sentence  just  written 
in  a  London  paper  by  an  English  teacher:  "About 
one-half  the  Americans  use  tones  that  make  you 
shiver.  They  will  be  shamed  out  of  this  only  by 
hearing  a  pleasant  voice  long  enough  to  feel  the 
unpleasantness  of  their  own." 

Two  college  girls  from  New  England  lived  a  year 
in  Spain.  One  of  them  says:  "When  I  came  home, 
at  least  one-half  of  my  own  friends  spoke  so  that 
I  wanted  to  put  my  hands  to  my  ears.  Yet  I  had 
never  for  an  instant  noticed  this,  until  I  had  been 
surrounded  by  people  for  some  months  whose  voice 
was  a  positive  pleasure  to  the  ear."  This  illustrates 
one  precious  lesson  our  critics  have  helped  to  teach 
us.  We  were  "taking  it  in"  even  when  we  were 
hotly  abusing  our  instructors.  Dickens's  brilliant 
caricature  left  its  lesson  for  improved  prison  methods 
and  for  better  manners.  Even  the  saucy  Mrs. 
Trollope,  whose  every  page  left  a  smart,  actually 
modified  some  of  our  habits.  Men  who  sprawled 
in  their  shirt-sleeves  in  a  theatre  box,  or  thrust  a  foot 
over  the  railing  in  the  gallery,  about  1840,  often 
heard  the  word,  "Trollope!"  "Trollope!"  shouted 
in  the  audience.  All  knew  amidst  the  laughter 
what  it  meant.  Much  in  these  criticisms  entered 
into  our  common  thought  and  helped  to  form  that 
self-criticism  which  makes  the  better  possible. 


312  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

Most  of  the  hardest  strictures  concern  frailties 
and  imperfections  that  are  easily  accounted  for  by 
the  newness,  the  narrowness,  or  the  hard  physical 
difficulties  in  the  surrounding  life.  It  was  usually 
the  point  of  the  unsympathetic  critic  that  our  char- 
acter and  institutions  were  such  that  we  could  not 
free  ourselves  from  the  disorders. 

It  is  a  very  different  sign,  but  not  less  favorable, 
that  so  many  of  the  early  students  of  America  be- 
lieved that  our  democracy  as  a  form  of  government 
chokes  and  hinders  opportunity  for  the  growth  of 
higher,  disinterested  faculties.  Science,  art,  letters, 
all  the  graces  and  real  distinctions  of  civilization 
were,  as  they  tell  us,  under  baleful  handicap,  be- 
cause we  were  committed  to  a  democracy. 

In  nothing  has  the  tone  of  the  critic  undergone 
profounder  change  than  as  regards  this  same  word 
"opportunity,"  opportunity  for  the  highest  as  well 
as  for  the  commonest.  St.  Gaudens,  the  sculptor, 
has  finished  his  work,  and  foreign  artists  are  telling 
us  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  French  Rodin, 
the  American  had  no  superior  in  the  world.  Sir 
Robert  Ball,  the  Astronomer-Royal  of  Ireland, 
recently  left  us.  He  is  reported  as  saying  that  no 
higher  astronomical  work  is  done  in  Europe  than 
here. 

In  1830  it  was  written  of  us:  "They  have  neither 
made  any  music  nor  do  they  show  the  slightest 
appreciation  of  it.  Even  their  'Yankee  Doodle' 
and  'Hail  Columbia'  were  not  written  by  Yankees." 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  313 

The  French  composer,  Saint-Saens,  was  last  year 
in  this  country.  "Before  I  came  here,"  he  says, 
"people  told  me  a  great  many  unpleasant  things 
about  the  New  World.  'You  won't  like  America,' 
they  said.  'Everything  over  there  will  shock  you 
and  grate  upon  your  artistic  sensibilities.'"  He 
now  reports  (not  for  the  American  interviewer, 
but  in  the  Paris  Figaro)  his  delight  and  surprise: 
"Everywhere  I  found  excellent  orchestras  —  every- 
where excellent  conductors." 

Mr.  Bryce's  tribute  to  our  higher  education  as  on 
a  level  with  the  best  that  Europe  offers  is  in  the 
same  key. 

If  opportunity,  as  an  inspirer  of  faculty,  be  made 
the  test  of  progress,  we  gladly  accept  it.  The  pres- 
ent-day voyager  is  indeed  the  first  to  use  it  in  the 
larger  sense,  as  characteristic  of  this  country.  "If 
you  ask  me,"  says  one,  "in  what  the  United  States 
differs  from  Europe,  one  word  expresses  it,  'Op- 
portunity.'" One  entitles  a  chapter  "The  Land 
of  Opportunity."  *  A  Socialist  friend  is  very  im- 
patient with  what  he  calls  "all  this  fine  talk  about 
opportunity"  in  this  country.  Have  we  not  sixty 
thousand  tramps,  grewsome  poverty,  and  all  the 
shame  of  the  sweatshop  and  child  labor?  Yes,  far 
too  much  of  this  shame  is  ours,  but  "opportunity" 
is  a  relative  term.  What  land  or  people  offers 
more  to  a  larger  part  of  its  inhabitants?  The 

»The  title  of  a  German  book  is  "The  Land  of  Limitless 
Opportunity." 


314  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

world's  practical  judgment  about  this  has  to  be 
taken.  Since  our  story  began,  some  twenty-five 
millions  of  people  at  a  good  deal  of  risk  and  sacrifice 
have  left  their  homes  to  come  here.  They  came 
from  all  parts  of  the  world  and  the  pressure  increases 
from  year  to  year.  It  increases  because  those  who 
have  tried  the  country  write  back  to  their  friends 
to  follow  them.  The  chief  cause  of  immigration 
is  the  story  which  those  continue  to  tell  who  have 
put  the  chances  here  to  trial.  No  more  final  test 
is  conceivable  than  this,  that  (as  compared  to  other 
countries)  the  world's  millions  have  found  it,  and 
still  find  it,  the  land  of  opportunity.  An  English 
consul,  long  in  this  country,  says  the  charge  of  the 
English  that  the  Irish  are  shiftless  and  ineffective 
at  their  tasks  in  Ireland  has  much  truth,  but  he 
I  adds,  "The  moment  the  Irishman  touches  American 
\  soil,  he  works,  and  works  with  the  best  of  them, 
\because  all  sorts  of  chances  open  out  to  him  and 
his  children." 

Now,  what  more  than  this  same  "opportunity" 
enters  hi  to  and  constitutes  a  people's  hopefulness, 
courage,  and  happiness?  If  we  are  careful  in  our 
thought  to  add  to  the  fact  of  economic  opportunity 
the  fact  of  the  rapidly  growing  educational  oppor- 
tunity, hopeful  chances  never  were  greater  in  our 
history  than  now  —  I  mean,  for  a  larger  proportion 
of  the  population. 

Many  who  admit  this  are  likely  to  add,  "  But  this 
opportunity  is  closing  up,  it  will  soon  be  at  an  end." 


1 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  315 

No  prophecy  at  the  time  it  is  spoken  can  be  dis- 
proved, but  the  pages  of  our  critics  contain  a  great 
deal  of  testimony  that  bears  directly  on  the  point^ 
Decade  by  decade  through  the  century,  our  visitors 
are  stoutly  assured  by  the  best-informed  Americans, 
that  the  limit  of  assimilating  immigrants  has  been 
reached.  "It  must  be  stopped  or  the  Repi 
is  at  an  end."  This  gloomy  view  held  stiffly  in 
1825;  it  was  rampant  when  De  Tocqueville  and 
Miss  Martineau  were  here;  it  reached  a  crisis  of 
alarm  in  1840.  "America,"  says  one,  "is  always 
going  to  the  devil,  but  never  gets  there."  Yes,  it 
has  always  been  going  to  the  devil,  because  of  some- 
thing. It  is  worth  while  to  note  some  of  these 
ever  impending  calamities. 

Most  of  the  first  visitors  heard  from  conservative 
and  leading  citizens  that  the  President  was  to  be- 
come a  "despot"  or  "the  slave  of  foreign  potentates" ; 
that  the  Senate  was  sure  to  become  an  oligarchy, 
because  it  sat  six  years  and  was  not  elected  directly 
by  the  people;  that  the  central  government  would 
swallow  up  the  states  or  intimidate  them  by  the 
army;  even  the  House  of  Representatives  would 
be  made  up  of  the  rich  and  would  tyrannize  over 
the  people;  the  small  states  would  be  at  odds  with 
the  large  states  and  lose  their  sovereign  rights; 
Rhode  Island  could  not  maintain  itself  against 
New  York.  Bryce  says  of  these  dark  misgivings, 
"Not  one  has  proved  true."  There  were  many 
fears  because  of  the  size  of  our  country.  In  a  small 


316  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

democracy,  it  was  said,  you  may  extend  power  to 
the  people,  because  the  area  of  the  problem  is  under 
control.  With  the  vast  domain  of  the  United  States, 
the  interests  will  be  so  diverse  and  so  conflicting 
that  the  factional  spirit  cannot  be  held  in  restraint. 
Bryce  says  very  definitely  that  this  factional  unrest 
has,  as  a  fact,  "proved  less  intense  over  the  large 
area  of  the  Union  than  it  did  in  the  Greek  republics 
of  antiquity;  to-day  the  demon  of  faction  is  less 
powerful  in  the  parties  than  at  any  previous  date 
since  the  so-called  Era  of  Good  Feeling  in  1820." 
Again,  we  were  to  be  hopelessly  vacillating  in  our 
foreign  policy.  Democracy,  it  was  said,  is  "like 
a  drunken  man  on  horseback,  falling  now  on  this 
side,  now  on  that."  But  Bryce  will  not  even  admit 
that,  at  our  worst,  we  outdid  most  monarchies. 
"Royal  caprice,  or  the  influence  of  successive 
favorites,  has  proved  more  pernicious  in  absolute 
monarchies  than  popular  fickleness  in  republics." 
With  more  conviction  still,  he  says  of  our  later  years 
that  "the  foreign  policy  of  the  United  States  has 
been  singularly  consistent."  This  criticism,  that  we 
should  be  feeble  and  inadequate  in  foreign  policy, 
was  repeated  and  believed  until  the  very  close  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  But  when  commanding 
necessities  came  upon  us,  the  man  equipped  for  the 
new  exigencies  appeared  in  John  Hay.  We  were 
told  at  his  death  by  a  foreign  diplomat  that  in  the 
whole  field  of  world  politics  Mr.  Hay  had  no  su- 
perior. I  heard  it  predicted  that  his  successor 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  317 

could  not  be  found.  Elihu  Root  did  not  have  to 
be  found,  he  was  at  hand. 

Another  dire  prediction  was  that  with  so  many 
states,  dangerous  and  irresponsible  experiments 
would  be  tried.  Especially  would  states  here  and 
there  legislate  against  private  property,  putting 
the  whole  basis  of  society  in  peril.  We  now  see 
that  this  very  experimental  feature  of  state  legisla- 
tion has  proved  to  be  an  advantage,  and  as  for  the 
perils  to  private  property,  Bryce  finds  the  prediction 
wholly  false. 

Basil  Hall  was  told  that  the  rock  on  which  we 
were  to  split  was  the  change  in  our  inheritance  laws 
whereby  all  the  children  get  their  equal  share,  in- 
stead of  the  oldest  son  getting  it  all.  This  was  to 
destroy  the  saving  social  influence  of  the  family  and 
property.  This  fear  now  sounds  to  us  merely  funny. 

Giving  equality  of  rights  to  women  (first  appear- 
ing in  the  youth  of  Lucy  Stone)  was  also  an  in- 
novation sure  to  introduce  "a  conflict  of  interests 
—  a  lack  of  family  unity  —  that  no  society  could 
stand."  Woman  has  not  won  a  right  or  an  equality 
that  has  not  stood  for  progress. 

That  the  church  should  be  separated  from  the 
state  was  another  fatal  step  to  bring  in  ruin.  For 
more  than  a  generation  our  visitors  were  told  that 
the  catastrophe  always  close  at  hand  is  the  presence 
of  Roman  Catholics. 

I  once  had  occasion  to  ask  an  aged  man,  whom 
his  fellow- citizens  counted  as  one  of  their  wisest, 


318  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

some  question  about  our  social  difficulties.  When 
he  had  given  his  opinion,  he  added:  "I  suppose 
I  am  the  more  hopeful  because  my  seventy  years 
of  pretty  clear  memory  cover  so  many  'shipwrecks 
of  the  Republic.'  My  father  was  a  hard-headed 
man,  and  nothing  was  more  impressed  upon  my 
youth  by  him  and  his  friends  who  came  to  us  than 
the  absolutely  certain  destruction  of  our  govern- 
ment by  the  Catholics.  I  have  lived  to  see  that 
every  one  of  their  alarms  was  an  entirely  false  one. 
As  this  has  been  true  of  a  great  many  other  scares, 
I  have  got  into  a  pretty  comfortable  frame  of  mind 
about  this  country."  He  added,  "  Of  course,  some- 
thing awful  may  happen  to-morrow,  but  I  am  going 
to  let  the  other  man  do  the  worrying."  I  use  this 
because,  better  than  any  words  of  mine,  it  sums 
up  the  century  of  testimony  on  the  approaching 
evils  that  were  to  overwhelm  us. 

De  Tocqueville  saw  an  impending  peril  from  the 
growing  "tyranny  of  the  majority."  How  brill- 
iantly he  proved  this !  We  now  see  that  the  proof 
had  one  defect  —  it  wasn't  true.  How  often  it 
has  been  a  glowering  "Caesarism"  close  at  hand. 
Bryce  notices  this  and  thus  writes,  "Caesarism  is 
the  last  danger  to  menace  America." 

That  before  the  death  of  George  Washington, 
De  Warville  should  see  our  doom  in  the  "ravages 
of  luxury"  already  rampant,  sounds  as  droll  to  us 
as  that  a  great  number  of  enlightened  people  be- 
lieved the  Republic  in  immediate  danger  because 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  319 

of  that  very  innocent  society  of  the  Cincinnati, 
or  as  the  fears  expressed  to  Miss  Martineau,  be- 
cause young  men  were  leaving  the  cities  for  the 
country  districts.  The  "decay  of  religion"  was, 
of  course,  at  all  times  working  our  early  ruin. 

Another  form  which  the  fear  took  was  the  cer- 
tainty of  "disrupting  religious  quarrels"  because 
of  the  increase  of  Protestant  sects.  The  Catholic 
Professor  Klein  comes  here  to  find  us  so  tolerant 
in  this  respect  as  to  set  a  splendid  example  to  the 
world.  He  wishes  France  could  imitate  us. 

It  should  calm  us  a  little  that  so  many  people  in 
the  first  half  of  the  last  century  were  dejected  about 
the  "servant  question."  There  has  not  been  a 
decade  since  colonial  times  in  which  this  frowning 
difficulty  has  not  seemed  to  multitudes  of  home- 
keepers  a  despairing  problem.1  "The  increase 
of  intemperance"  is  another  spectre  constantly 
appearing  in  our  story.  A  long  chapter  would 
be  insufficient  to  show  the  clear  and  impressive 
evidence  that,  however  intemperate  we  now  are,  the 
improvement  in  drinking  habits  is  beyond  a  doubt. 

There  is  one  more  shape  which  our  early  undoing 
takes  on  that  is  perhaps  more  instructive  and  more 
encouraging  than  any  other.  It  is  the  agitated  feel- 

1  The  work  of  the  servant  a  century  ago  is  thus  depicted :  "  She 
mended  the  clothes,  she  did  up  the  ruffs,  she  ran  errands  from  one 
end  of  the  town  to  the  other,  she  milked  the  cows,  made  the  butter, 
walked  ten  blocks  for  a  pail  of  water,  spun  flax  for  the  family 
linen,  and  when  the  year  was  up  received  ten  pounds  (50  dollars) 
for  her  wages." 


320  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

ing  for  more  than  a  generation  that  we  could  not 
possibly  survive  the  growth  of  "sectional  hatreds." 
It  is  a  feat  of  the  "sympathetic  imagination"  quite 
beyond  us  of  to-day,  to  appreciate  what  these  sec- 
tional hatreds  and  jealousies  were  in  the  first  forty 
years  with  which  our  criticisms  deal.  No  opera 
bouffe  could  outdo  many  of  these  sober  records 
of  sectional  spite.  Trevelyan  shows  what  this 
local  prejudice  meant  among  our  soldiers  in  the 
Revolution.  A  military  patriot  from  New  Jersey 
gives  his  opinion  of  the  corrupting  influence  of 
Pennsylvania  soldiers.  They  would,  he  says,  "be 
pejorated  by  having  been  fellow-soldiers  with  that 
discipline-hating,  good-living-loving,  to  eternal  fame 
damned,  coxcombical  crew  we  lately  had  from 
Philadelphia."  This  English  historian  adds  that 
this  amiable  communication  was  from  no  less  a  man 
than  General  Livingston,  and  that  it  "was  one 
among  a  hundred  others  which  betoken  a  condition 
of  feeling  productive  of  endless  scandal  and  im- 
measurable danger." 

I  had  to  look  through  a  good  many  of  our  own 
history  books  in  the  effort  to  confirm  the  dire  opin- 
ions which  travellers  record  about  these  geographi- 
cal animosities.1  They  record  so  many  of  them 
that  only  the  briefest  illustrations  can  here  be  given. 
One  reports  the  president  of  Harvard  College  (the 
historian  Sparks)  as  "much  dispirited  on  account 
of  California  and  her  attitude."  In  a  letter  to  De 

1  See,  for  example,  ''American  Revolution,"  Vol.  II,  p.  196. 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  32! 

Tocqueville  he  writes,  "Where  will  this  end  and 
how  are  such  accessions  and  discordant  materials 
to  be  held  together  in  a  confederated  republic?" 
Marryat  gives  these  "acrid  jealousies"  as  a  reason 
why  a  traveller  cannot  trust  a  bit  of  evidence  that 
he  gets  in  one  part  of  the  country  about  any  other 
part  of  it.  "The  people  of  Connecticut  will  not 
allow  that  there  is  anything  commendable  or  decent 
hi  New  York."  The  German,  F.  J.  Grund,  is  so 
impressed  by  this  that  he  falls  into  a  speculative 
nightmare.  Through  these  prophetic  mists  he  sees 
in  the  near  future  our  collapse  as  a  nation.  He  says : 
"I  imagined  myself  somewhere  near  the  Hudson 
or  the  Delaware  in  the  midst  of  a  large  flourishing 
city,  besieged,  stormed,  and  finally  carried  by  a 
victorious  Western  army." 1  It  was  against  the 
playing  upon  these  sectional  discords  that  Webster 
spoke  his  great  words,  "There  are  no  Alleghanies  in 
my  politics." 

That  we  have  grown  in  those  integrities  that  con- 
stitute progress  is  not  wholly  proved  by  the  kind 
of  testimony  just  given.  But  it  is  a  history  of  doubt- 
ing and  fearful  opinions  which  we  may  read  with 
a  good  deal  of  wholesome  instruction  and  encour- 
agement. 

Such  weight  as  this  story  of  pessimistic  appre- 
hension possesses,  we  must  take  over  into  the  final 
chapter.  We  shall  see  there  the  bearing  of  what  our 
critics  reveal  on  the  gravest  dangers  to  Democracy. 

1  "Aristocracy  in  America,"  Francis  J.  Grund,  London,  1839. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

SIGNS  OF  PROGRESS  —  Continued 

IN  a  lecture  on  this  coy  subject  of  Progress,  I  sat 
beside  an  expectant  stranger  who  listened  with  lessen- 
ing attention  for  about  twenty  minutes.  Then,  with 
visible  irritation,  he  reached  for  his  hat,  saying, 
"I'm  too  busy  to  listen  any  longer  to  this  infernal 
pig-iron  theory  of  progress." 

It  was  a  true  description  of  the  discourse.  It  was 
progress  in  terms  of  pig-iron  and  kindred  material 
products,  and  yet  this  waspish  auditor  was  not  alto- 
gether fair  to  the  lecturer.  His  figures  had  a  kind  of 
poetry  of  their  own,  as  one  watched  the  graphic  tables 
through  which  the  story  was  told.  It  yet  seemed  to 
me  to  stand  for  progress,  that  this  impatient  hearer 
was  unfed  by  all  the  dazzling  accumulations.  He 
had  heard  the  tale  of  our  material  greatness  so  often, 
that  he  wanted  other  proofs.  Is  the  time  never  to 
come,  he  seemed  to  ask,  when  we  can  safely  take 
the  pig-iron  side  of  our  civilization  for  granted? 
We  have  heard  the  critics  find  a  deal  of  fault  with 
our  harping  on  all  manner  of  bignesses  and  rapidities. 
If  social  movement  has  a  right  direction  hi  America, 
if  there  is  the  movement  of  growth  and  improvement, 

322 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  323 

appeal  has  to  be  made  to  something  besides  bigness 
or  swiftness.  Questions  mainly  about  the  quality 
of  things  have  to  be  asked,  and  not  alone  about  the 
quality  of  things,  but  about  the  quality  of  whatever 
constitutes  the  moral  and  intellectual  temper  of 
our  people  and  institutions.  For  example,  is  there 
among  our  citizens  increase  of  public  spirit  as  against 
sectional  narrowness  ?  Is  there  improvement  hi  the 
public  taste  and  manners?  Is  educational  oppor- 
tunity broadening,  and  the  standard  of  education 
rising?  Are  we  more  ashamed  of  bluster  and  pre- 
tence? Is  the  public  quicker  to  condemn  the  tur- 
pitude in  business  and  public  office?  Is  there  a 
growing  decency  in  our  politics  ?  Is  the  Press  — 
"that  test  of  democracy"  —  better  or  worse? 

These  are  some  of  the  hard  questions  that  must  be 
raised  and  hi  some  way  answered  before  the  case 
for  progress  can  be  made  out. 

Several  of  these  questions  have  already  been  hope- 
fully answered  by  our  critics.  For  more  than  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  best  of  them  are  full 
of  doubts  about  our  future,  so  far  as  all  ideals  of  mind 
and  heart  are  concerned.  Decade  by  decade  the 
tone  has  changed  until,  toward  the  close  of  the 
century,  we  have  from  them  ungrudging  admission 
that  the  institutions  and  the  people  of  the  United 
States  have  far  outstripped  expectations,  so  far  as 
education,  science,  and  many  of  the  arts  are  con- 
cerned. The  last  quarter  of  a  century  has  revealed 
other  hungers  and  other  capacities  that  are  classed 


324  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

in  every  country  among  the  things  of  the  spirit. 
In  successive  chapters,  we  have  seen  how  ungrudg- 
ingly these  higher  attainments  have  been  recognized 
by  the  ablest  men  and  women  who  have  told  their 
story  in  all  sorts  of  "Impressions  of  America." 
About  two  things  they  hesitate,  —  our  politics  and 
our  press. 

Let  us  look  first  at  the  press.  It  would  have  dis- 
heartening significance  if  this  were  failing  us;  if  it 
were,  as  one  often  hears,  becoming  a  meaner  rather 
than  a  nobler  influence ;  if,  taken  as  a  whole,  it  were 
on  the  devil's  side.  For  a  hundred  years  it  has  been 
singled  out  as  an  object  of  vituperation.  It  was 
"The  Daily  Bulletin  from  the  sick-bed  of  civiliza- 
tion." It  has,  says  another,  turned  us  into  the 
"  Gehenna  of  the  United  States."  In  1898  a  foreign 
scholar  wrote :  "I  ask  but  one  proof  that  civilization 
in  the  United  States  is  a  failure.  Her  press  alone 
gives  you  more  proof  than  you  require."  Let  us 
accept  the  test,  and  allow  the  critics,  with  a  little 
nudging,  to  answer  the  question. 

The  above  tone  against  the  press  continues  until  a 
few  exceptions  begin  to  be  noted  near  the  middle  of 
the  century.  But  the  press  in  general  gets  little 
quarter  until  very  recent  times.  Even  now,  nothing 
except  our  politics  excites  more  critical  condemna- 
tion. The  average  visitor  buys  a  batch  of  the  more 
notorious  journals.  On  the  headlines  and  brawling 
sensational  features  he  makes  up  his  little  budget 
of  comments.  One  of  them  writes,  "  If  I  wished  to 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  325 

convince  any  rational  being  that  the  ruin  of  democ- 
racy is  certain,  I  should  see  that  he  spent  a  few 
evenings  reading  these  sheets."  This  is  as  if  one 
were  to  test  the  excellence  of  the  Dresden  Gallery 
by  the  dozen  worst  canvases  on  its  walls,  or  a 
people's  health  by  visiting  the  hospitals.  Just 
above  this  type  of  observer  is  one  who  discriminates 
so  far  as  to  select  in  the  East  and  West  a  group 
of  papers  that  are  admitted  to  be  admirable,  and 
to  this  extent  the  judgment  is  qualified.  Matthew 
Arnold  and  Professor  von  Hoist  found  certain 
journals  in  the  United  States  as  able  as  any  printed 
in  Europe,  but  scarcely  before  the  twentieth  century 
has  any  one  attempted  to  study  our  press  as  a  whole. 
A  simple  incident  shows  what  this  more  careful 
and  discriminating  study  produces  in  way  of  criti- 
cism. 

Two  years  ago  an  author  and  editorial  writer  on 
one  of  the  London  papers  came  to  investigate  this 
subject.  I  begged  him  to  include  in  his  examina- 
tion not  alone  the  dailies,  but  the  weekly,  the  fort- 
nightly, and  the  monthly  products,  The  World's 
Work,  McClure's,  Review  of  Reviews,  The  Outlook, 
Collier's,  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  The  World 
To-day,  The  Youth's  Companion,  The  Independent, 
and  a  dozen  others.  Many  of  these  summarize 
news  and  cope  with  every  besetting  problem  as 
the  older  magazines  that  do  us  so  much  honor 
could  not  attempt.  They  are  as  integrally  a  part 
of  our  press  as  a  sheet  with  five  daily  editions. 


326  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

Some  of  these  magazines  are  said  to  be  given  to 
muck-raking  and  to  sensations.  If  the  charge  is 
true,  it  is  a  use  of  the  rake  that  we  need  as  sorely 
as  the  crippled  or  the  sick  need  surgeons  and  doctors. 
The  few  have  always  known  the  existence  and  the 
nature  of  our  real  social  perils,  but  methods  of 
secrecy,  created  by  the  winners  in  our  competitive 
system,  have  prevented  the  people  as  a  whole  from 
having  the  least  intellectual  grasp  of  ills  from  which 
they  most  suffer.  One  by  one  these  eating  sores, 
with  the  secrecy  which  sheltered  them,  are  being 
laid  bare  to  us  all. 

In  this  initial  work  of  regeneration,  the  best  of 
our  dailies  have  had  their  influence  immeasurably 
increased  by  periodicals  of  the  type  partially  named. 
The  cheap  magazine  is  unhampered  by  local  in- 
fluence. It  speaks  to  the  nation.  No  one  pretends 
that  the  magazines  named  are  on  sale  to  any  capi- 
talistic influence.  If  one  were  "bought,"  young 
fellows  with  ideals  still  burning  in  them  would  put 
another  in  its  place.  So  incalculable  has  been  their 
service  in  making  the  millions  see  the  danger-spots 
in  the  Republic ;  seeing  them  so  clearly  as  to  bring 
the  question  of  remedies  within  the  region  of  prac- 
tical politics,  that  they  are  already  lively  competitors 
in  point  of  moral  influence  with  the  college  and  the 
church.  Half  playfully  William  James  wonders  if 
the  future  historian  will  not  find  young  men  turn- 
ing from  the  university  to  the  cheap  magazine  for 
help.  This  is  already  true.  In  every  state  and 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  327 

city  where  the  fight  for  clean  citizenship  is  really 
on,  the  achieving  men  get  instruction  and  inspira- 
tion from  these  same  sources,  just  as  many  an  aca- 
demic teacher  goes  to  these  same  magazines  to  be 
trained  for  a  part  of  his  own  proper  work. 

When  the  English  author  above  mentioned  had 
done  his  work  upon  this  inclusive  journalism,  he 
told  me,  "No  nation  has  a  press  that  should  excite 
more  pride  1  and  encouragement  than  yours.  No- 
where is  a  part  of  it  worse;  nowhere  is  the  other 
part  so  good.  No  other  people  dare  to  take  the  lid 
off  as  you  do,  and  that  is  your  safety." 

Like  every  other  issue  with  which  we  have  dealt, 
the  question  of  press  influence  is  one  of  comparison 
and  of  tendency.  Is  the  collective  influence  of  the 
press  greater  for  good  in  the  twentieth  century  than 
it  was  in  1800  or  in  1825?  Any  one  who  cares  to 
spend  two  days  upon  the  dingy  files  of  those  older 
organs,  will  see  that  they  resemble  the  worst  or  the 
weakest  of  our  present-day  press,  but  bear  little 
resemblance  to  the  best  of  our  press  to-day.  The 
temper  of  the  time  may  be  shown  in  a  single  incident 
in  1812.  It  concerns  the  Federal  Republican, 

1  Another  English  editor,  Mr.  Stead,  writes:  "The  Century, 
Scribner's,  and  Harper's  are  three  periodicals  the  like  of  which  we 
may  search  for  in  vain  through  the  periodical  literature  of  the  world. 
The  American  Review  of  Reviews  is  much  superior  in  price  and 
general  get-up  and  advertisements  to  the  English  Review  of  Re- 
views from  which  it  sprang.  We  have  no  magazine  comparable 
to  the  World's  Work.  Neither  have  we  anything  comparable  to 
the  Youth's  Companion,  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  or  Success." 


328  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

published  in  Baltimore.  For  years  it  used  against 
the  Government  and  the  democracy  a  personal 
bitterness  so  extreme  that  the  building  in  which 
it  was  published  was  destroyed,  together  with  the 
type  and  presses.  Against  all  warnings,  a  plucky 
attempt  was  made  by  Editor  Hanson  to  continue 
the  publication.  The  author  of  "Home,  Sweet 
Home"  gave  what  proved  to  be  most  costly  advice. 
A  score  of  brave  men  promised  to  defend  the  new 
building  from  which  the  paper  was  to  reappear. 
It  was  attacked  with  such  fury  that  the  public  au- 
thorities were  helpless.  They  got  the  men  into  jail 
to  protect  them,  but  this  was  attacked.  Half  the 
prisoners  escaped,  but  nine  were  clubbed  to  death, 
after  which  their  bodies  were  treated  with  insane 
brutality  which  only  Indians  on  the  war-path  could 
have  matched. 

Our  stomach  is  still  strong  for  literary  enormities 
in  every  variety,  but  the  billingsgate  and  vitupera- 
tion of  a  century  ago  we  should  not  tolerate.  It  is 
only  the  "submerged  tenth"  of  our  press  that  equals 
it.  It  was  not  alone  the  famous  Editor  Duane  of 
whom  it  was  written:  — 

"  Law,  order,  talents,  and  civility, 
Before  your  worshipful  mobility, 
Must  bow,  while  you  their  thinking  man, 
Lead  by  the  nose  your  kindred  clan. 
Thou  art  indeed  a  rogue  as  sly 
As  ever  coined  the  ready  lie 
Amongst  the  Catilines  of  faction, 
None  calls  more  energies  in  action. 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  329 

With  impudence  the  most  consummate, 
You  publish  all  that  you  can  come  at, 
To  make  for  discord's  sake,  a  handle, 
Of  private  anecdote,  or  scandal." 

This  editorial  shyster  is  often  singled  out  as  an 
exception,  but  our  ablest  historian  of  that  quarter 
of  a  century  says  he  was  but  one  among  other  "  scur- 
rilous libellers." 

So  too  was 

"William  Coleman,  who  in  1801  became  editor  of  the 
New  York  Evening  Post  under  the  eye  of  Alexander 
Hamilton ;  so  was  the  refined  Joseph  Dennie,  who  in  the  same 
year  established  at  Philadelphia  the  Portfolio,  a  weekly  paper 
devoted  to  literature,  in  which  for  years  to  come  he  was  to 
write  literary  essays,  diversified  by  slander  of  Jefferson. 
Perhaps  none  of  these  habitual  libellers  deserved  censure 
so  much  as  Fisher  Ames,  the  idol  of  respectability,  who 
cheered  on  his  party  to  vituperate  his  political  opponents. 
He  saw  no  harm  in  showing  'the  knaves,'  Jefferson  and 
Gallatin,  the  cold-thinking  villains  who  lead,  'whose  black 
blood  runs  intemperately  bad,'  the  motives  of  their  own  base 
hearts."  ' 

But  if  democracy's  chief  educator  —  the  Press  — 
has  improved;  if  the  totality  of  press  influence  is 
now  more  effective  for  good ;  if  the  best  of  it  is  rous- 
ing the  people  first  to  a  consciousness,  and  then  to 
a  new  sensitiveness  and  shame  about  our  national 
vices,  can  any  comparable  word  of  hope  be  spoken 
about  our  Politics  ?  Very  tardily  we  have  learned 
that  no  answer  can  be  given  to  this  inquiry  about 

1  Adams,  Vol.  I,  p.  119. 


330  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

politics  unless  we  include  in  the  question  the  chief 
commercial  activities,  especially  those  that  have  a 
monopoly  character.  Our  more  powerful  business 
interests  give  both  shape  and  color  to  politics. 
Politics  does  not  improve  unless  business  methods 
also  improve.  Especially  in  a  democracy,  the 
morals  of  business  and  of  politics  will  rise  or  fall 
together.  If  leading  business  enterprises  are  as 
lax  and  reckless  as  they  were  after  our  Civil  War, 
nothing  could  prevent  scandals  as  gross  as  those 
in  Grant's  administration.  Aaron  Burr's  sinister 
political  influence  was  neither  greater  nor  less  than 
the  corrupt  business  support  that  was  behind  him. 
The  politics  of  Pennsylvania  and  Rhode  Island  are 
to-day  largely  what  the  chief  local  business  methods 
of  monopoly  character  have  made  them.  The  task, 
then,  is  no  less  formidable  than  this:  to  show  that 
standards  have  risen  alike  in  business  methods  and 
in  political  activity.  The  story  of  New  York  and 
Chicago  street  railways,  the  story  of  St.  Louis,  Phil- 
adelphia, and  San  Francisco  are  fresh  in  our  minds. 
What  at  any  time  could  have  been  worse  than  these 
tabulated  histories?  The  fleecing  of  the  public  in 
these  and  a  score  of  other  industries  is  on  a  scale 
so  immense  that  the  wiles  of  the  older  time  seem  in 
comparison  like  the  naughtiness  of  children.  Yet 
nothing  stands  out  in  our  record  with  greater  clear- 
ness than  the  rise  of  business  and  political  standards, 
if  the  temper  of  the  community  is  taken  as  a  whole. 
The  only  sure  test  of  a  rising  standard  must  be  in 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  33! 

the  increased  popular  sensitiveness  to  social  evils. 
If  we  are  quicker  to  smart  under  them,  if  we  are 
more  ready  and  alert  to  oppose  them,  the  spirit  of 
improvement  is  astir  among  us.  Whenever  a  com- 
munity becomes  conscious  and  sensitive  about  an 
evil,  progress  so  far  has  begun.  It  may  be  cruelty 
to  children  or  to  animals.  To  get  a  new  social 
feeling  as  to  what  this  cruelty  means;  then  to  or- 
ganize the  feeling  into  a  recognized  standard,  so 
that  the  cruelty  may  be  penalized  and  put  under 
ban,  is  progress. 

This  forward  social  movement  may  be  seen  in 
almost  every  phase  of  life  noted  by  our  critics. 
It  is  hard  now  to  picture  a  community  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  which  tolerated  a  set  of  toughs  who 
let  their  nails  grow  long  in  order  to  gouge  out  other 
men's  eyes  and  to  maim  each  other  in  ways  still 
more  hideous.  Yet  this  was  an  amusement  which 
never  failed  of  an  audience.  As  indications  of  cal- 
lous inhumanity,  those  brutalities  are  little  if  any 
worse  than  the  miscellaneous  savagery  against  those 
who  fell  into  debt,  or  than  the  prevailing  treatment 
of  the  insane  which  few  of  us  can  now  read  without 
a  physical  shrinking.  The  prisons  where  these 
atrocities  went  on  were  openly  accessible  to  public 
observation  in  the  very  pick  of  New  England  com- 
munities. 

Here  are  examples  vouched  for  by  our  historian 
McMaster :  — 


332  AS   OTHERS   SEE    US 

"The  face  of  the  land  was  dotted  with  prisons  where  deeds 
of  cruelty  were  done  in  comparison  with  which  the  foulest  acts 
committed  in  the  hulks  sink  to  a  contemptible  insignificance. 
For  more  than  fifty  years  after  the  peace,  there  was  in  Con- 
necticut an  underground  prison  which  surpassed  in  horrors 
the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta.  This  den,  known  as  the  New- 
gate Prison,  was  in  an  old  worked-out  copper  mine  in  the 
hills  near  Granby.  The  only  entrance  to  it  was  by  means  of 
a  ladder  down  a  shaft  which  led  to  the  caverns  underground. 
There,  in  little  pens  of  wood,  from  thirty  to  one  hundred  cul- 
prits were  immured,  their  feet  made  fast  to  iron  bars,  and  their 
necks  chained  to  beams  in  the  roof.  The  darkness  was  in- 
tense ;  the  caves  reeked  with  filth ;  vermin  abounded ;  water 
trickled  from  the  roof  and  oozed  from  the  sides  of  the  caverns ; 
huge  masses  of  earth  were  perpetually  falling  off.  In  the 
dampness  and  the  filth  the  clothing  of  the  prisoners  grew 
mouldy  and  rotted  away,  and  their  limbs  became  stiff  with 
rheumatism." 

"At  Northampton  the  cells  were  scarce  four  feet  high,  and 
filled  with  noxious  gases  of  the  privy  vaults  through  which 
they  were  supposed  to  be  ventilated.  At  the  Worcester 
prison  were  a  number  of  like  cells,  four  feet  high  by  eleven 
long,  without  a  window  or  a  chimney,  or  even  a  hole  in  the 
wall.  Not  a  ray  of  light  ever,  penetrated  them." 

"Modes  of  punishment  long  since  driven  from  prisons  with 
execrations  as  worthy  of  an  African  kraal  were  looked  upon 
by  society  with  a  profound  indifference.  The  treadmill 
was  always  going.  The  pillory  and  the  stocks  were  never 
empty.  The  shears,  the  branding  irons,  and  the  lash  were 
never  idle  for  a  day." 

From  a  report  of  the  committee  of  the  Humane 
Society  (New  York,  1809)  we  get  a  glimpse  of  prisons 
that  were  in  still  more  ghastly  condition.  In  one, 
it  was  the  occupation  of  a  burly  negro  to  strip  and 


SIGNS  OF   PROGRESS  333 

flog  the  inmates.  The  committee  found  those  in 
chains  who  had  been  in  these  foul  quarters  so  long 
that  no  one  connected  with  the  prison  could  throw 
the  least  light  on  the  cause  of  imprisonment.  One 
of  these  victims  was  found  to  be  both  insane  and 
blind.  He  was  in  such  tatters  that  the  visitors,  who 
called  special  attention  to  him,  are  told  that  it  does 
no  good  to  give  him  clothes  because  "the  rats  will 
eat  them  off  him" 

That  these  abominations  could  exist;  that  they 
could  be  so  widely  known  to  the  public,  represents 
an  indifference  to  suffering  which  we  have  put  a 
good  way  behind  us. 

The  atrocities  committed  against  a  large  part  of 
those  who  could  not  pay  their  debts  may  be  seen  in 
the  fact  that  the  Embargo  of  1808  caused  a  business 
depression  so  sharp  that  thousands  of  hard-working 
and  honest  people  could  not  meet  their  liabilities. 
They  were  not  to  blame  for  the  panic,  but  in  1809 
the  prisons  were  choked  with  men  and  women  who 
owed  sums  of  less  than  ten  dollars.  For  the  very 
poorest  of  these  there  was  in  many  instances  actually 
no  provision  made  by  state  or  city  even  to  feed  them. 
There  was  no  attempt  made  at  ventilation,  nor  was 
there  the  slightest  sanitary  care.  There  seems  never 
to  have  been  room  enough,  so  that  damp  cellars  were 
usually  crowded.  Sickness  and  an  appalling  death- 
rate  were,  of  course,  inevitable. 

In  the  United  States  of  to-day  those  barbarities 
would  excite  a  riot  of  moral  revolt.  We  are  still 


334  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

very  dense  in  dealing  with  crime,  but  our  advance 
in  humaneness  and  in  solicitude  for  suffering  is  so 
great  that  we  seem  to  be  in  another  world.  But  it 
is  very  evident  that  this  improved  feeling  about  one 
form  of  evil  cannot  long  be  confined  to  that  alone. 
It  will  slowly  assert  itself  hi  revolt  against  other 
forms  of  evil  as  their  social  harmfulness  becomes 
clear. 

This  is  what  has  happened  also  in  the  business 
and  political  world.  We  have  at  last  begun  to  be 
sensitive  about  innumerable  transactions  that  were 
accepted  by  our  ancestors  as  they  tolerated  the 
atrocities  of  the  prisons.  When  Marryat l  reports 
the  saucy  unconcern  with  which  an  official  tells  him 
openly  that  his  salary  is  so  much  and  his  "stealings" 
so  much  besides,  it  is  not  merely  a  facetious  stroke, 
it  represents  a  condition  that  we  have  outgrown  to 
the  extent  that  public  opinion  is  now  stung  into 
criticism  and  into  action. 

The  head  of  one  of  the  best-known  commission 
houses  in  New  York  City  has  hi  his  library  docu- 
ments which  record  accurately  the  methods  of  his 
branch  of  business  for  two  generations.  He  tells 
me  that  no  one  familiar  with  business  can  study 
that  record  without  seeing  that  the  "market  tone" 

1  "I  asked  how  much  his  office  was  worth,  and  his  answer 
was  six  hundred  dollars,  besides  stealings.  This  was,  at  all  events, 
frank  and  honest;  in  England  the  word  would  have  been  softened 
down  to  perquisites.  I  afterwards  found  that  it  was  a  common 
expression  in  the  States  to  say  a  place  was  worth  so  much  besides 
cheatage."  Marryat  (I),  p.  194. 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  335 

has  risen.  It  is  not  merely  that  a  relatively  larger 
and  larger  part  of  business  is  done  on  credit  that 
assumes  a  prevailing  trustworthiness  in  the  trade, 
but  he  adds,  "  We  are  compelled  to-day  to  be  a  great 
deal  more  solicitous  about  the  entire  moral  side  of 
our  dealings." 

As  high  a  type  of  citizen  and  business  man  as 
New  England  has  produced  in  our  time  —  the  late 
John  M.  Forbes  —  said  openly  that  in  his  earlier 
business  career  "things  were  done  by  trustees  that 
the  public  would  not  for  an  instant  stand  to-day, 
and  they  were  done  without  a  thought  of  their  being 
wrong"  *  As  one  moves  from  city  to  city  toward 
the  West,  the  same  reply  is  almost  invariably  given. 
For  a  good  many  years  I  have  sought  evidence  on 
this  point.  As  older  inhabitants  will  illustrate  by 
their  personal  observation,  the  solid  improvement  in 
drinking  habits;  in  social  refinements;  in  more 
varied  and  wholesome  pleasures ;  in  all  that  touches 
public  and  private  health;  they  will  also  tell  you 
that  the  political  and  business  trickeries,  common 
in  the  older  time,  would  to-day  excite  more  instant 
criticism. 

The  sickening  details  of  business  and  political 
corruption  that  followed  our  Civil  War  led  the  late 
Senator  Hoar  to  examine  the  old  records  of  our 

1  In  speaking  of  the  scandals  after  our  Civil  War,  the  his- 
torian Rhodes  describes  the  popular  feeling  as  severe  against  the 
bribe-taker  but  not  against  the  bribe-giver.  "In  business  ethic, 
the  man  who  took  a  bribe  was  dishonorable,  the  man  who  gave 
it  was  not."  Vol.  VII,  p.  n. 


336  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

"idolized  days"  —  the  days  of  Washington,  Adams, 
and  Jefferson.  The  honest  Massachusetts  senator 
had  been  made  half  ill  by  the  magnitude  of  revealed 
corruption  during  General  Grant's  administration 
(chiefly  the  whiskey  frauds  and  those  under  Secre- 
tary Belknap).  It  was  from  this  low  ebb  that  he 
made  his  comparison.  His  judgment  is  unequivo- 
cally this,  that  the  politics  of  those  admired  days 
were  not  only  more  corrupt  than  to-day,  but  more 
corrupt  as  compared  to  the  worst  of  Grant's  regime.1 

In  the  chapter  on  "Our  Greatest  Critic"  it  was 
asked  if  there  was  anywhere  in  the  pages  of  Mr. 
Bryce  actual  evidence  for  his  sustained  and  buoyant 
spirit  of  hopefulness  about  this  country.  We  may 
believe  as  a  matter  of  faith,  never  so  stoutly,  that 
all  is  to  come  right,  but  Mr.  Bryce's  volumes  scarcely 
contain  the  reasons  for  his  optimism,  apart  from 
his  faith  and  good-will.  After  he  has  disclosed 
some  staggering  political  evil,  we  are  often  left  spec- 
ulating just  why  the  flame  of  his  good  cheer  loses 
neither  light  nor  heat.  It  burns  on  undiminished, 
and  we  too  feel  that  he  is  right.  We  too  cling  to 
our  faith  that  all  will  turn  out  well  with  us  and  our 
institutions ;  but  are  there  proofs  that  our  movement 
and  direction  are  right? 

In  the  open  record  covered  by  our  list  of  critics, 
there  are  substance  and  material  in  abundance  to 

1  The  reader  who  wishes  to  refresh  his  mind  on  the  degree  of 
corruption  that  came  after  our  Civil  War  may  find  it  in  the  calm, 
wise  pages  of  Rhodes's  "  History  of  the  United  States,"  ;th  volume. 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  337 

answer  the  question.  Bad  as  we  now  are  and  in- 
defensible as  our  iniquities  may  be,  our  ancestors 
acted  upon  the  whole  with  less  political  and  business 
scruple  than  we  now  act.  But  a  word  of  warning 
is  necessary. 

It  would  be  most  disreputable  work  to  "show 
up"  the  infirmities  of  these  ancestors,  if  it  were  to 
leave  us  with  added  self-complacency.  Our  sins 
are  relatively  and  for  our  times  as  great  as  theirs, 
and  we  shall  not  wash  them  out  except  by  suffering 
and  by  struggle.  If  this  is  our  spirit,  we  do  those 
ancestors  no  wrong  in  telling  the  truth  of  progress 
and  of  growth. 

We  have  to  go  back  hardly  more  than  two  genera- 
tions before  our  first  critic,  to  see  many  illustrious 
American  families  accepting  undisturbed  a  goodly 
portion  of  their  income  from  very  murderous  piracies 
on  the  high  seas.  They  took  the  blood-money  with- 
out a  shiver.  It  was  the  wont  and  usage-  of  the  time. 
There  was  no  conviction  of  sin  about  partnership 
in  such  robberies.  This  degree  of  callousness  is 
left  behind  as  we  approach  the  nineteenth  century. 
But  in  the  year  1800,  and  long  after  it,  there  were 
business  and  political  practices  widely  current  that 
excited  far  less  shame  and  protest  than  those  prac- 
tices now  excite.  This  new  sensitiveness,  coupled 
with  immense  organized  energies  to  curb  the  evils, 
is  itself  a  definition  of  Progress.  But  are  we  mak- 
ing headway? 

Let  us  look  at  the  one  state  where  we  can  best 


338  AS    OTHERS    SEE    US 

see  the  interaction  between  politics  and  privileged 
business  early  in  the  last  century,  the  state  of  New 
York.  The  work  of  transcribing  events  authenti- 
cally from  the  journals  of  the  Senate  has  been  so  far 
done,  that  we  know  accurately  what  happened.  It 
was  long  thought  that  New  York  was  the  one  un- 
happy exception.  We  now  know  that  it  stood  fairly 
for  methods  that  were  very  general  throughout  the 
country.  In  1816  the  aldermen  were  stealing  the 
city  land  by  tricks  inconceivable  in  that  city  to-day. 
The  great  number  of  state  licensed  lotteries  were 
not  alone  a  source  of  debauchery  in  themselves,  they 
had  a  political  use  which  was  even  worse.  The 
history  of  favors  secured  by  the  Exchange  Bank  in 
1818  was  rank  with  venality.  To  buy  legislative 
aid  with  bank  or  insurance  company  stock  was  a 
system.  The  frauds  of  the  insurance  companies 
were  far  more  openly  gross  than  any  we  have  known 
in  our  day.  From  1805  the  relation  of  chartered 
business  to  political  scandals  continued  with  regu- 
larity and  notoriety.  In  1812  the  Assembly  com- 
pelled its  members  to  pledge  themselves  not  to  sell 
their  votes,  though  this  pledge  was  of  short  duration. 
The  story  of  the  Brooklyn  Ferry  Monopoly,  of  the 
Commercial  Bank,  of  the  Chemical  Bank,  of  the 
capitalization  of  the  State  Bank,  and  of  the  Man- 
hattan Bank  which  the  politicians  controlled,  are 
one  and  all  of  the  same  character.1  When  the  con- 

1  Let  the  reader  turn  to  McMaster  (Vol.  VI,  p.  405)  and  note 
what  banking  methods  were  in  use  twenty-five  years  later. 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  339 

test  for  full  manhood  suffrage  came  In  1820,  the 
richer  class  was  shocked  because  "  corruption  would 
come  in  with  the  people."  It  is  true  the  people 
were  used  to  this  end,  but  the  essential  evil  in  its 
worse  form  was  all  there,  and  never  more  gluttonously 
used  than  when  the  suffrage  was  confined  to  "the 
safe  property  interests,"  to  the  genteel  and  the  well- 
nurtured.  Why,  then,  should  the  blame  have  been 
heaped  alone  upon  the  poor  political  goat,  as  if  he 
alone  were  the  sinner?  Why  should  the  business 
partner  get  off  so  easily  ?  Not  until  within  ten  years 
has  this  union  between  business  and  politics  had  a 
popular  and  convincing  explanation.  We  see  at  last 
that  if  a  great  mining  area  like  Montana  develops 
a  fierce  competitive  and  gambling  spirit,  the  state 
politics  will  merely  reflect  that  spirit,  and  the  richest 
man  who  wants  it  will  buy  his  place  in  the  Senate. 
If  the  chief  industry  is  lumbering,  and  the  competi- 
tive passion  connives  at  the  organized  robbery  of 
public  forests,  the  same  type  of  man  takes  his  seat 
in  that  body.  The  cry  was  always  heard,  "Politics 
must  be  reformed!"  The  cry  should  have  been, 
Those  business  methods  which  create  politics  must 
be  reformed !  To  have  made  this  discovery ;  to 
see  what  it  means  with  the  railroads,  forests,  grazing 
lands,  mines,  and  all  forms  of  chartered  privilege,  is 
more  important  than  any  mechanical  discovery  of 
our  age.  To  go  straight  on  in  the  way  we  have  at 
last  set  out,  to  bring  this  whole  group  of  privileges 
under  social  control;  to  stop  once  for  all  private 


340  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

persons  from  using  these  immense  values  as  mere 
dice  in  their  game;  to  stop  the  interception  of  un- 
earned wealth  that  has  made  our  craziest  inequalities, 
is  the  kind  of  progress  that  puts  justice  and  fair 
dealing  into  our  business  and  therefore  into  our 
politics.1  The  whole  renaissance  of  ardor  and 
interest  in  civic  decency  that  is  now  alive  in  the 
nation;  that  pulses  hi  the  best  of  our  press;  that 
gives  us  a  score  of  books  each  year  and  has  created 
hundreds  of  active  organizations  hi  the  country, 
is  largely  due  to  the  new  confidence  that  we  see 
what  the  evil  is  and  how  to  measure  our  strength 
against  it. 

Again  and  again,  our  best  critics  have  noted  a 
sinister  "fatalism"  in  our  attitude  toward  these 
evils.  "You  cannot  get  your  American  to  kick 
unless  he  is  threatened  by  some  dramatic  disaster  " 
is  said  of  us  for  a  hundred  years.  The  kicking  has 
set  in,  and  the  altered  experience  through  which  the 
talent  has  developed  is  full  of  hope.  Nearly  three 
generations  ago  Abdy  was  in  despair  about  slavery 
because  "the  people  I  meet  will  not  admit  it  to  be 
evil."  The  second  phase  of  this  despair  was  that 
"even  if  it  is  an  evil,  nothing  can  be  done  about  it." 
We  have  passed  through  both  those  phases  as  they 
concern  a  great  many  social  perils. 

1  We  shall  sometime  wake  out  of  our  drugged  condition  to  see 
that  the  excesses  of  our  tariff  (as  in  Pennsylvania)  have  sunk 
the  political  tone  and  method  to  depths  from  which  it  will  require 
the  moral  valor  of  a  generation  to  lift  and  free  us. 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  34! 

In  1830  a  writer  records  this  about  tuberculosis: 
"What  they  call  'consumption'  kills  the  Americans 
as  if  they  were  perpetually  in  battle ;  but  they  speak 
of  it  as  if  it  were  in  no  way  their  concern,  rather  as 
if  God  sent  it  for  some  reason  of  His  own."  We 
are  now  assured  that  "simply  to  use  the  knowledge" 
at  our  disposal  is  to  check  tuberculosis  as  effectively 
as  has  been  done  in  the  case  of  smallpox. 

But  this  new  consciousness  of  power  over  evils 
that  had  been  accepted  as  fatal  is  no  longer  confined 
to  diseases  of  the  body.  We  are  learning  that  politi- 
cal and  industrial  diseases  are  no  more  a  necessity 
than  yellow  fever.  A  new  shame  has  come  to  Ameri- 
cans throughout  the  land  because  they  were  so  long 
and  so  cheaply  fooled  by  common  rogues  in  the  shape 
of  party  bosses  created  and  backed  by  privileged 
interests.  East  and  West  so  many  of  these  creatures 
have  been  put  to  rout  and  the  tawdry  tricks  exposed, 
that  the  question  rises  why  we  were  so  long  lulled 
into  this  fool's  submission.  It  was  largely  because 
we  did  not  see  straight.  It  was  largely  because  the 
deeper  causes  of  bad  politics  were  hidden  from  us. 
To  leave  privileged  monopoly  in  private  hands,  with 
only  a  pretence  of  regulation,  is  an  open  and  direct 
premium  upon  organized  bribe-giving  and  bribe- 
taking.  Every  special  vice  was  protected  and  en- 
couraged by  the  methods  of  secrecy  which  these 
favored  monopolies  were  permitted  to  use.  The 
public  gave  outright  every  chartered  condition  on 
which  monopoly  rests.  These  indispensable  grants 


342  AS   OTHERS    SEE   US 

gave  rights  to  state  and  city  which  we  forgot, 
until  the  abuses  became  so  topping  and  outrageous 
that  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  saw  the  be- 
ginning of  a  revolt  which  another  generation  will 
count  quite  as  revolutionary  as  the  uprising  against 
slavery  after  1830.  If  less  desperate,  the  struggle 
before  us  will  be  as  long  as  that  against  the  other 
slavery.  It  will  weigh  men  in  the  balance,  even  as 
it  did  then.  It  will  call  forth  noble  heroism  and, 
alas !  also  the  cringing  cowardice  which  selfish 
idolatries  always  engender.  None  of  us  will  escape 
the  test.  The  Church,  the  College,  the  Press,  will 
no  more  avoid  it  than  the  politician  or  the  man  in 
the  street. 

It  is  progress  to  be  awakened  to  the  facts.  To 
have  begun  the  struggle  is  further  progress.  The 
one  hope  of  it  all  is  to  realize  that  the  main  work 
has  yet  to  be  done.  It  lies  there  before  us  solely 
as  opportunity — opportunity  for  large  and  disin- 
terested citizenship. 

Not  a  tittle  more  democracy  can  be  ours  than  that 
which  is  measured  by  our  freedom  from  the  worst 
of  our  business  monopolies  which  we  created  by  our 
common  negligence  and  our  common  ignorance,  and 
have  so  long  permitted  as  to  leave  very  few  of  us 
without  consenting  guilt.  As  the  mass  and  extent 
of  this  lawlessness  has  been  laid  bare,  so  that  the 
people  could  see  how  deep  and  dangerous  a  pit  we 
have  been  digging  for  popular  government,  the 
revolt  has  come.  It  has  for  the  first  time  in  our 


SIGNS    OF   PROGRESS  343 

history  shown  vigor  enough  to  frighten  the  law- 
breakers. They  are  now  crying  for  relief.  In  the 
words  of  another  classic  law-breaker,  — 

"I'm  a  quiet  Old  Cove,"  says  he  with  a  groan: 
"All  I  axes  is  —  Let  me  alone." 

But  why  " let  alone"  ?  "  Because,"  says  the  Cove, 
"money  incomes  will  be  endangered.  We  have 
been  corrupting  and  breaking  the  laws  of  the  people. 
That  is  true  of  us ;  but  to  make  us  obey  those  laws 
will  injure  business  and  it  will,  moreover,  hurt  a 
great  many  innocent  people." 

This  in  its  nakedness  is  the  answer.  The  shabby 
excuse  appears  unashamed  in  scores  of  our  papers. 
Yet,  there  is  nothing  less  than  the  Nation's  honor  and 
health  at  stake.  Will  the  people  continue  to  toler- 
ate the  corruption  and  the  lawlessness  for  the  sake 
of  these  stock-exchange  estimates?  For  the  entire 
people  and  for  a  larger  future  even  this  cash-box 
reckoning  is  false.  It  is  true,  if  at  all,  only  for  the 
few  and  for  the  immediate  present.  Political  and 
business  honesty  must  surely  be  best  in  the  long  run 
for  the  great  body  of  our  people.  We  shall  go  on 
struggling  and  caring  for  the  money  income,  but  we 
must  learn  also  to  care  greatly  and  with  some  passion 
for  business  straightness  and  political  cleanness. 
This  nobler  solicitude  will  prove  the  one  unavoid- 
able test  of  our  democracy.  We  have  begun  now 
to  compel  our  money  kings  to  play  a  fair  game  and 
obey  the  law.  This  is  well  and  necessary,  because 


344  AS   OTHERS    SEE    US 

many  of  them  have  so  conspicuously  disobeyed. 
They  have  caused  more  havoc  than  lesser  folk. 
They  have  rifled  the  people's  wealth.  But  most  of 
them  have  also  organized,  built  up,  and  immensely 
developed  our  national  resources.  This  shall  go 
down  to  their  credit.  There  is  no  unpleasanter 
fact  about  "us  common  people"  than  the  desire, 
old  as  it  is  new,  to  have  a  scapegoat  upon  which 
to  pack  our  own  sins.  We  are  now  forcing  "  the 
rich"  into  this  service.  They  must  be  made  to 
act  legally;  but  so  must  all  of  us  be  made  to  act 
legally. 

To  get  this  sense  of  law-abidingness  into  our  minds 
as  a  people  is  the  duty  above  all  others  now  before 
us.  To  look  the  dishonors  straight  in  the  face ;  to 
flay  bribe-sanctioning  at  the  top,  as  we  flay  bribe- 
taking  at  the  bottom;  to  see  that  the  corrupting  of 
a  legislature  is  a  darker  and  a  meaner  sin  than  the 
slugging  of  a  scab;  to  ask  for  "law  and  order" 
among  the  mighty  as  we  ask  it  among  the  obscure ; 
to  set  ourselves  grimly  and  a  little  sadly  —  as  if 
with  a  sense  of  common  frailty  —  to  the  great  task 
of  national  house  cleaning,  is  the  solemn  beginning 
to  which  we  are  committed  in  these  early  days  of 
the  twentieth  century. 

It  will  not  pass  as  a  spasm  of  moral  irritation 
because  a  deep  and  sustaining  popular  sentiment 
has  at  last  been  aroused  and  instructed.  Men  with 
stout  hearts  willing  to  fight  on  the  outer  lines  may 
now  count  on  this  support.  It  is  a  sentiment  that 


SIGNS   OF   PROGRESS  345 

cannot  lessen  because  the  causes  out  of  which  it 
sprang  are  multiplying  in  the  community.  Where 
the  people  have  suffered  most,  there  the  flame  of 
the  new  feeling  is  at  its  height.  From  Oregon  to 
Los  Angeles  the  uprising  is  most  clearly  felt. 

It  was  on  that  fateful  Pacific  coast  that  the  people 
came  first  to  see  the  farce  of  "  representative 
government."  Monopoly-made  politics  had  there  a 
stalking  effrontery  which  was  all  the  swifter  to  carry 
its  convincing  lessons  to  the  people. 

The  ringing  cry  for  direct  primary,  referendum, 
initiative,  recall,  and  popular  election  of  senators 
which  fills  that  freer  air  is  the  challenge  to  monopoly 
privilege.  It  is  the  cry  for  that  measure  of  economic 
and  political  equality  which  has  long  been  our 
theory,  but  never  our  practice.  It  is  the  cry  that 
democratic  government  shall  now  begin  in  the  United 
States. 

This  hardier  spirit  is  everywhere  alive  in  the  great 
West.  It  is  alive  in  the 'East,  but  the  sanctities  of 
precedent  and  privilege  lie  heavier  upon  the  older 
section.  Yet  the  new  moral  reckoning  is  of  no 
section ;  neither  is  it  of  any  party,  sect,  or  nationality. 

In  the  long  list  of  the  century's  critics  there  is 
scarcely  a  volume  which  does  not  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, willingly  or  unwillingly,  bear  witness  to  this 
slow  rise  in  social  sensitiveness,  and  in  social  pur- 
pose to  free  ourselves  from  Industrial  and  political 
tyrannies.  Twenty  years  ago,  one  of  these  censors 
used  words  with  which  I  gladly  close  this  study. 


346  AS   OTHERS   SEE   US 

Though  they  apply  quite  as  fitly  to  other  nations, 
we  can  well  afford  to  take  the  hint  they  offer. 

"If  the  American  should  once  become  possessed 
of  a  little  genuine  humility,  a  humility  without  loss 
of  courage  or  self-respect;  if  he  lost  a  little  hard- 
ness hi  his  self-confidence  and  became  more  teach- 
able, his  mastery  in  the  art  of  self-government  would 
easily  lead  the  world." 


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1851. 

FRENCH  CRITICISMS 

Adam,  Paul.     Vues  d'Ame"rique.     Paris.  1906. 

Ampere,  J.  J.     Promenade  in  Amerique.  Paris.     1855. 

D'Almbert,  Alfred.  Flanerie  Parisienne  aux  Etats  Unis. 
Paris.  1856. 


AS    OTHERS    SEE   US 


Bourget,  Paul.     Outre-Mer,  2  vols.    Paris.    1895  (translated). 
Brissot,  J.  P.     Nouveau  Voyage  dans  les  Etats  Unis,  3  vols. 

Paris.     1791. 
Chauteaubriand.     Travels    in  America  and  Italy,   2   vols. 

London.     1828. 
Chevalier,  Michael.     Society,  Manners,  and  Politics  in  the 

United  States.     Boston.     1837. 

Crevecoeur,  St.  John.    Voyage,   etc.,  3  vols.    Paris.     1801. 
De  Bacourt.     Souvenirs  d'un  Diplomate.     Paris.     1882. 
Dugard,  Marie.     La  Societe*  Ame*ricaine.     Paris.     1896. 
Gobat.     Croquis  et  Impressions  d'Ame"rique. 
Gohier,  Urbain.    Le  Peuple  du  XX  Siecle.     Paris.    1896. 
Huret,  Jules.     En  Ame*rique.     Paris.     1904. 
-    De  New  York  a  la  Nouvelle  Orleans.     1905. 
Klein,  Abbe*.    Au  Pays  de  la  Vie  Intense  (translated).     Paris. 

1905. 

Laboulaye,  M.     Paris  en  Ame'rique.     Paris.     1870. 
La  Rochefoucauld-Liancourt.    Voyage  dans  Les  Etats  Unis. 

Paris.     1795-6-7. 
Le  Roux,  H.     Business  and  Love.     Dodd  Mead,  New  York. 

1903. 
Lowenstern,  Isidore.    Le  Estats  Unis  et  la  Havane.     Paris. 

1842. 

Moreau,  G.     L'Envers  des  Etats  Unis.     Paris.     1903. 
Murat,    le    Prince.      Letters   sur   Les   Etats   Unis.     Paris. 

1830.     (Translation,  New  York,   1849.) 
Nevers,  Edmond  de.     L'Ame  Americaine.     Paris.     1900. 
O'Rell,   Max.     Jonathan    and   his  Continent.    New  York. 

Cassell.     1889. 

Regnier.    Au  Pays  de  1'Avenir.     1906. 
Rousier,  Paul  de.     La  Vie  Americaine,  2  vols.     Paris.    1899 

(translated). 

Soissons,  de  S.  C.    A  Parisian  in  America.     Boston.     1896. 
De  Tocqueville.     Democracy  in  America,  2  vols.     (Bowen's 

translation.)     Cambridge,  Mass.     1862. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  353 

Varigny,  G.  de.    Six  Months  in  America.     1833. 
Wagner,  Charles.    My  Impressions  of  America.     McClure, 
Phillips  &  Co.     New  York.     1905. 

GERMAN  CRITICISMS 

Altherr.     Eine  Amerikafahrt  in  Zwanzig  Briefen.     1905. 

Baumgartner,  Professor  A.  Erinnerungen  aus  America. 
Zurich.  1906. 

Boecklin,  August.     Wanderleben.     Leipzig.     1902. 

Bodenstadt,  F.  Vom  Atlantischen  zum  Stillen  Ocean.  Leip- 
zig. 1882. 

Fulda,  Ludwig.     Amerikanische  Eindriicke.     Cotta.     1906. 

Herter,  A.     Die  Wahrheit  iiber  Amerika.     Bern.     1886. 

Hintrager,  Dr.  Wie  lebt  und  arbeitet  Man  in  den  Vereinigten 
Staaten.  Brentano.  1904. 

Julius,  Dr.  N.  H.  Nordamerikas  sittliche  Zustande.  Leipzig. 
1839. 

Knortz,  Karl.  Aus  der  Transatlantischen  Gesellschaft.  Leip- 
zig. 1887. 

Lamprecht,  Professor  Karl.     Americana.     Freiburg.     1906. 

Miinsterberg,  Professor  Hugo.  American  Traits.  Hough- 
ton  Mifflin.  1903. 

Miinsterberg,  Professor  Hugo.  The  Americans.  McClure  & 
Phillips.  1004. 

Neve,  I.  L.  Charakterziige  des  Amerikanischen  Volkes. 
Leipzig.  1903. 

Ratzel,  F.  Die  Vereinigten  Staaten  von  Amerika,  2  vols. 
1878. 

Sievers,  Wilhelm.     Amerika.     Leipzig.     1894. 

Von  Polenz,  W.  Das  Land  der  Zukunft.  Brentano.  New 
York. 

Von  Raumer,  Baron.  America  and  the  American  People. 
New  York.  1846.  (Professor  of  History,  Berlin.) 

Zimmermann,  Karl.     Onkel  Sam.     Stuttgart.     1904. 

2  A 


INDEX 


Abdy,  E.  S.,  quoted  on  American 

bragging,   66-67;    references   to, 

299,  340. 
Abolitionists,    Harriet    Martineau 

and  the,  108-109. 
Accent,   the   American,  47-48,  77. 

See  Voice. 
Accidents  in  early  and  present-day 

travelling,  303-304. 
Ache,  Caran  d',  227  n. 
Adam,  Paul,  80,  129,  187-188 ;  ad- 
miration for  American  art,  187- 

188. 
Adams,  Andy, "  Log  of  a  Cowboy  " 

by,  16. 
Adams,  Henry,  "  History  of  United 

States  "  by,  quoted,  308-309,  329. 
Adaptability,  quality  of,  42,  84,  87. 
Advertisements,  charlatans',  86. 
Alertness  of  children,  49. 
Almbert,  Alfred  d',  quoted,  63  n., 

187  n. 
"American  Commonwealth,"  James 

Bryce's,  analysis  of,  231-252. 
"  American    Many,    The,"    Mill's 

term,  167. 
"  American  Traits,"  Miinsterberg's, 

253  ff. 

Americans,  good  and  bad,  55-59. 
"  Americans,  The,"   Miinsterberg's 

work,  255-256. 
Ames,  Fisher,  33,  329. 
Ampere,   J.  J.,  50;  on   American 

self-complacency,  66. 
Ancestry  craze,  262-263. 
"  Apercu,"  Poletika's,  308. 
Archer,  William,  128,  221 ;  quoted, 

4.  143- 
Arfwedson,  C.  D.,  quoted,  302-303. 


Arnold,  Matthew,  13 ;  on  George 
Washington,  39-40;  criticisms 
by,  113-114;  quoted,  117,  290  n.; 
value  to  Americans  of  work  by, 
208 ;  on  manners  of  English  and 
of  American  women,  209 ;  cited, 

325- 
Art,   French   praise   of  American, 

187-188 ;  progress  in,  312. 
Ashe,  Thomas,  35,  123. 
Associational  activity  in  America, 

79- 

Astronomical  work,  American,  312. 
Aveling,  Dr.,  in  America,  274. 

Bacon,  Mrs.,  quoted,  95. 
Bacourt,  De,  26,  248. 
Bad  manners,  77.     See  Manners. 
Bad  roads,  21,  22,  31,  300-303. 
Bagehot,  Walter,  quoted,  131. 
Balance,  lack  of,  186-187. 
Baldwin,  W.  J.,  quoted,  192. 
Ball,  Sir  Robert,  cited,  312. 
Baltimore,    foreign    paupers     in, 

105. 
Balzac,  French  love  of  money  set 

forth  by,  144-145. 

Bancroft,  George,  bragging  by,  64. 
Bernhardt,    Sara,    rhapsodies    by, 

175  n. 

Biddle,  Nicholas,  101. 
Billings,  Josh,  extracts  from,  225- 

226. 
Blackwood's  Magazine,  articles  in, 

on  America,  118,  122;  Michael 

Scott's  remarks  in,  149. 
Blanc,  Madame,  129,  180. 
Blouet,  Paul,  23  n. ;  quoted,  175, 

178,  197. 


355 


356 


INDEX 


Boarding-houses,  ai. 

Book-pirating,  35,  120. 

Bootjack  story,  221. 

Boss,  the  political,  259,  269-273, 
285-286,  341-342- 

Boston,  people  of,  40-41 ;  Harriet 
Martineau  in,  81,  108-110;  Bris- 
sot  de  Warville  in,  174;  Jack 
London  and  H.  G.  Wells  in, 
276. 

Bostonians,  pitiless  hospitality  of,  83. 

Boston  Transcript  genealogical 
page,  263. 

Bourget,  Paul,  103,  129,  185. 

Bradbury,  John,  123,  193. 

Bragging,  American,  21,  60-76,  77 ; 
different  ways  of,  61-62 ;  special 
American  brand  of,  63-64;  rea- 
sons for  trait,  70-71, 73-74 ;  West- 
ern vs.  Eastern,  71-73 ;  contrast 
afforded  by  Japanese  modesty, 
74-75 ;  abatement  of,  75-76. 

Breakfast  punctuality,  182-183. 

Bremer,  Frederika,  26 ;  quoted,  83, 
99-100. 

Bright,  John,  quoted,  92-93. 

Brissot,  J.  P.,  14. 

British  Review,  articles  in,  118. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  231. 

Brothers,  Thomas,  quoted,  28-29, 
122. 

Brown,  William,  27  n.;  quoted,  43. 

Bryce,  James,  13,  128,  313 ;  a  trib- 
ute to,  18  ;  quoted,  40,  62  n.,  82, 
ioi,  130,  172,  238  ff.,  315,  316, 
318 ;  on  American  bragging,  68, 
76;  on  diminution  of  oversensi- 
tiveness,  114-115;  on  million- 
naires  in  America  and  in  Eng- 
land, 146 ;  on  effect  of  equality 
on  manners,  205-206;  judgment 
of,  on  American  humor,  229-230 ; 
cosmopolitan  good-fellowship  of, 
832-234;  value  of  work  by,  to 
Europeans,  237-238 ;  to  Ameri- 
cans, 238 ;  optimism  of,  241, 336; 
on  the  House  of  Representatives, 
283  n. 


Buckingham,  J.  S.,  28. 
Buckminster,  quoted,  ioi. 
Buffalo,     Frederika     Bremer     in, 

99-100. 

Bunn,  Alfred,  quoted,  102. 
Busch,  Wilhelm,  227  n. 
Business   standards,  improvement 

in(  330,  334-346. 

Cable,  George  W.,  16. 
Caesarism  in  America,  318. 
Caird,  Sir  James,  story  of,  201. 
Calamities,  certain  ever  impending! 

3I5-321- 
Callender,  attacks  on  Jefferson  by, 

32-33- 

Capitol  at  Washington,  21. 

Carlier,  Auguste,  180. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  23. 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  description  of, 
by  H.  G.  Wells,  291. 

Catholics,  ill-treatment  of,  108 ;  pre- 
dicted dangers  from,  317-318. 

Century  Magazine,  327  n. 

Change,  love  of,  84,  87,  90. 

"  Chanting  Cherubs,"  draping  of,  n. 

Chapman,  Mrs.,  Memoirs  of,  109. 

Charlatans,  America  the  home  of, 
85,  89. 

Chastellux,  Marquis  of,  quoted,  25, 
307-308. 

Chateaubriand,  37. 

Chevalier,  Michael,  38,  79  n.,  153, 
176,  232,  304 ;  quoted,  63,  79,  92, 
118  n.  ;  on  avarice  among  the 
French,  145. 

Chicago,  23,  71  n.,  73,  179. 

Child  labor,  277,  313. 

Children,  manners  0^48-49;  hap- 
piness and  alertness  of,  49-50; 
German  and  American  con- 
trasted, 266-267 ;  effect  of  Amer- 
ican city  life  on  immigrants', 
280. 

Chinese,  wages  earned  by,  305. 

Christian  Science  story,  222  n. 

Church,  commercialism  in  the,  286- 
287. 


INDEX 


357 


Church  and  State,  American  sepa- 
ration of,  8,  317. 

Churches,  niggardly  use  of  Protes- 
tant, 188  n. 

Civil  War,  92-93,  169 ;  lessons 
taught  by,  111-112;  English  re- 
spect won  by,  130-132 ;  a  German 
writer's  remarks,  133. 

Classical  allusions  by  speakers  and 
writers  on  American  democracy, 

153- 

Cobden,  Richard,  15,  38;  quoted, 
69, 148. 

Coldness  of  Americans,  90. 

Coleman,  William,  329. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  quoted,  19  n. 

Colleges,  English  bishop's  visits  to 
American,  73. 

Cologne  Gazette  correspondent,  45. 

Comic  papers,  215-217,  227-228. 

Commercialism  in  American  life, 
286-288. 

Conceit,  60-76. 

Conductors  of  trains,  201-202. 

Congress,  American,  2 ;  servile 
position  of  members  of,  269-273. 

"  Coniston,"  remarks  caused  by, 
264. 

Corn-eating  methods,  78. 

Corruption,  in  public  service  cor- 
porations, 244-246;  not  due  to 
democratic  form  of  government, 
250;  political,  269-273,  285-286; 
early  and  present-day  political, 
335-336;  in  New  York  State, 
338. 

Craddock,  Charles  Egbert,  16. 

Crapsey,  Dr.  A.  S.,  quoted,  79  n. 

Crevecoeur,  St.  John,  14. 

Crothers,  Dr.  Samuel  M.,  220. 

Curiosity,  American,  84,  88,  232- 
233. 

Daudet,  Alphonse,  on  Mark  Twain, 

226. 
De  Amicis,  Edmondo,  19;  quoted, 

62  n.,  75  n. ;  cited,  90,  139  n. 
Debt,  payment  of  national,  131. 


Debts,  State  repudiation  of,  119, 
249. 

Declaration  of  dependence,  267. 

Deland,  Margaret,  16. 

"  Democracy  in  America,"  De 
Tocqueville's,  107,  151  ff. 

Dentists,  78. 

Depew,  Senator,  270. 

Derby,  Lord,  quoted  by  Mr.  Stead, 
147. 

Descent,  pride  of,  80-81. 

Dicey,  Professor,  suggestion  by, 
147-148. 

Dickens,  Charles,  truth  of  criticisms 
by,  12-13 !  references  to,  28,  90, 
104,  202-203,  299,  311;  quoted, 
30,  60-61,  122,  139,  214-215. 

Dilettantism,  democratic,  264-266. 

Drinking,  by  women,  36-37. 

Drinking  habits,  319. 

Drugs,  use  of,  86. 

Duane,  editor,  328. 

Dunker,  Dr.,  quoted,  265-266. 

Dwight,  Timothy,  on  Jefferson's 
government,  33;  on  Bostonians, 
40;  answers  British  attacks,  120. 

Edinburgh  Quarterly  Review  arti- 
cles, 118-121. 

Education,  of  American  girls,  184 ; 
too  positive  methods  in,  criti- 
cised, 185-186;  of  colored  race, 
190;  Mr.  Bryce's  hopes  based 
on,  251-252;  public  and  private 
schools,  261-262. 

Edwards,  Miss  Betham-,  quoted, 
139  n. 

Elbows  on  table,  78. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  70,  72;  quoted, 
130  n.,  203,  211. 

England,  visitors  to  America  from, 
38 ;  grounds  of  American  sensi- 
tiveness to  opinion  in,  103  ff. ; 
criticisms  by  writers  of,  1 16  ff . ; 
effect  of  Civil  War  on  opinion 
in,  130-132;  love  of  money  in, 
145 ;  power  of  wealth  in,  146 ; 
suggested  Fourth  of  July  celebra- 


358 


INDEX 


tions  in,  148-149;  contrast  be- 
tween past  and  present  feeling 
in,  towards  America,  149-150; 
graft  in,  289 ;  upper  and  middle 
classes  in,  289-290 ;  Wells's  com- 
parison of  America  and,  290. 

English  grammar,  story  of  the,  106. 

Equality,  theory  of  social,  261-263. 

Everett,  Edward,  speech  by,  67. 

Exaggeration,  passion  for,  83,  186- 
187 ;  as  a  point  of  humor,  221- 

222. 

Faithful,  Emily,  on  American  girls, 
51 ;  Mrs.  Skinner's  speech 
quoted  by,  54-55. 

Farmers,  prosperity  of,  276. 

Fatalists,  Americans  as,  84,  87, 
340. 

Federal  Republican  incident,  327- 
328. 

Fees.    See  Tipping. 

Figaro,  conditions  necessary  to 
appreciate,  217. 

Fiske,  John,  17,  24. 

Flatteries,  certain  French,  173-175. 

Fliegende  Blaetter,  humor  of,  227. 

Flogging  in  army  and  navy,  ab- 
sence of,  6. 

Forbes,  John  M.,  335. 

Foreigners  citizens  of  America,  44. 

Foreign  policy,  American,  316. 

Foreign  Quarterly,  on  Americans, 

I2I-I22. 

Forestry  policy  of  United  States, 
57,  162-165. 

Foster,  Ambassador,  quoted,  149. 

Fourth  of  July  celebrations,  sug- 
gested English,  148-149. 

Fox,  John,  Jr.,  16. 

France,  Americanizing  of,  23  n.  ; 
visitors  from,  37-38,  173-190. 

Franchises,  granting  of,  164. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  Quarterly  Re- 
view article  on,  121. 

Frechheit,  43-44. 

Freedom,  limits  of  American,  267- 
273- 


Freeman,  Edward,  39;  on  the 
American  voice,  142 ;  on  Eng- 
lish pride  in  America,  150;  on 
American  manners,  211-212;  on 
democratic  form  of  government 
and  corruption,  250  n. 

French,  bragging  among  the,  62- 
63  ;  on  American  bragging,  65- 
66  ;  talking  at  meals  by,  140  ; 
love  of  money  among,  144-145. 

Froude,  J.  Anthony,  quoted,  212  n. 

"Future  in  America,"  Wells's, 
877  £ 

Gallatin,  Albert,  55-56,  329. 

Gambling,  286. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  108-109. 

Gasparin,  A.  E.  de,  37. 

Genealogical  craze,  262-263. 

Genty,  M.,  24. 

Germans,  Americans'  ideas  about, 
and  vice  versa,  253  ff. 

Germany,  visitors  to  America  from, 
38;  Miinsterberg's  book  written 
for,  253  ff.  ;  children  of,  con- 
trasted with  American  children, 
266-267. 

Gifford,  William,  118. 

Girls,  American,  50-51  ;  marriage 
of,  184;  French  and  American 
educational  ideals  for,  184-185  ; 
Miinsterberg's  eulogy  of,  258. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  a  tribute  to 
America  from,  131. 

Glasgow,  Ellen,  17. 

Godkin,  E.  L.,  cited,  298. 

Godley,  J.  R.,  on  Bostonians,  40. 

Goethe  on  good  manners,  205. 

Gold-filled  teeth,  78. 

Gold  standard,  57. 

Graft,  287;  in  England  and  in 
America,  289. 

Grant,  President,  corruption  dur- 
ing administration  of,  336. 

Grillenberger,  38,  129. 

Grose,  B.,  quoted,  44  n. 

Grund,  Francis  J.,  quoted,  321. 

Gum  chewing,  257. 


INDEX 


359 


Habeas  animum,  271-273. 

Hadley,  A.  T.,  on  value  of  good 
manners,  192. 

Hall,  Captain  Basil,  i  ff.,  102,  104 ; 
work  by,  1-2;  quoted,  2-3,  3-4, 
6,7,8,9,  10;  on  Americans'  in- 
ability to  take  a  joke,  213. 

Hamerton,  P.  G.,  19;  quoted, 
197  n.,  207. 

Hamilton,  Thomas,  quoted,  27-28 ; 
mentioned,  102,  104. 

Harper's  Magazine,  327  n. 

Hay,  John,  316. 

Health  and  ill-health  of  Americans, 
307-308. 

Heelers,  political,  285-286. 

Helps,  Sir  Arthur,  quoted,  84  n. 

Higginson,  Mrs.,  i. 

Hillebrand,  Karl,  19. 

Hoar,  Senator,  335-336. 

Hoboken,    Prince    Talleyrand   at, 

23- 

Hod-carriers,  wages  of,  306. 

Hole,  Dean,  on  American  inter- 
viewers, 143. 

Hoist,  Professor  von,  cited,  325. 

Hopefulness,  quality  of.  241-242. 

Honvill,  H.  W.,  46  n. 

Hospitality,  American  pitiless,  83. 

Hot  bread,  21. 

Hotel  clerks,  22,  211-212. 

Hotels,  21, 212,302 ;  over-ornament- 
ing of,  186. 

House  of  Commons,  Congress  con- 
trasted with,  2-3. 

Houses,  matter  of  wooden,  90-91. 

"  How  do  you  like  us  ?  "  trait,  99- 
103. 

Howells,  W.  D.,  102. 

Hugo,  Victor,  61,  63. 

Humbuggery,  85,  89. 

Humility,  necessity  of,  for  Ameri- 
cans, 346. 

Humor,  American,  85,  213  ff. ; 
specimens  of,  218-227;  verdict 
on,  of  various  authorities,  227- 
230. 

Huret,  Jules,  185. 


Hurry,  habit  of,  46-47,  137-138. 
"  Hurryupitis,"  138  n. 

Ice  cream,  large  helps  to,  21,  22. 
Ice-water  drinking,  21,  22,  135-136. 
Immigration,  scope  of  opportunity 
in  America  a  chief  incentive  to, 

3if 
Immigration    problem,    113,    278- 

280. 

Improvement.    See  Progress. 
India  and  United  States  contrasted, 

295- 

Indians,  Americans'  treatment  of, 
108. 

Inheritance  laws,  American  inno- 
vations in,  6-7,  124,  317. 

Intemperance,  among  American 
women,  36-37;  spectre  of  the 
increase  in,  319. 

Interviewers,  opinions  on,  143. 

Irishmen,  effect  of  America   on, 

314- 

Irving,  Washington,  quoted,    123; 

on  American  scenery,  135. 
Italians,  murdered  at  New  Orleans, 

112,  125  ;  wages  earned  by,  304. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  and  an  ill-bred 

American,  198-199. 
James,  William,  177-178,  188,  326. 
Jamestown  Exposition  document, 

72-73- 
Janet,  Claudio,  38,   180;    quoted, 

140. 

Janson,  C.  W.,  14-15,  26-27. 
Japanese,   modesty   of,   74-75 ;    in 

California  schools,  113,  125-126. 
Jealousies,  sectional,  320-321. 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  attacks  on,  32- 

33.  329- 

Jerrold,  Douglas,  220,  300. 
Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  16. 
Jews  in  America,  41-44. 
Johnson,    Andrew,     impeachment 

of,  131. 

Johnson,  Dr.,  on  Americans,  190. 
Jokes,  213-230. 


36° 


INDEX 


Joking  habit,  139. 

Journalists,  De  Tocqueville's  opin- 
ion of,  167 ;  visits  of  French,  to 
America,  178-179. 

Jowett,  Benjamin,  quoted,  97. 

Judge,  French  verdict  on,  215. 

Kemble,  Fanny,  38,  50,  53. 
Kickers,  English    and   American, 

92-97. 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  35,  38,  71  n.;  on 

pirating  of  books,  120. 
Klein,  Abb6,  38,  96, 128,  319;  work 

by,  188. 

Laboulaye,  Edouard  R.  L.  de,  80. 
Ladies'  Home  Journal,  325,  327  n. 
La  Farge,  John,  188. 
Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  37. 
Lamb,  Charles,  rank  of,  as  a  wit, 

220,  221. 

Lamprecht,  Karl,  quoted,  71  n. 
La  Rochefoucauld-Liancourt,  Due 

de,  37.  I74-I7S. 

Lausan,  Due  de,  37. 

Laws,  prolific  passing  of,  83. 

Leclaire,  Max,  work  by,  179  n. 

Le  Play,  180, 181. 

Liberty,  misconceptions  about 
American,  267-273. 

Liebknecht,  in  America,  274-275. 

Life,  German  criticism  of,  216; 
compared  with  Fliegende  Blaet- 
ter,  227. 

Littlefield,  Congressman,  quoted, 
239-240. 

London,  Jack,  276. 

Lowell  cotton  mills,  15,  304. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  epithets  applied  to, 
59 ;  quoted,  72,  93. 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  on  American 
bragging,  70;  comments  caused 
by  eye-glass  of,  203;  on  advan- 
tages of  equality,  206  n. ;  quality 
of  good-will  in,  232 ;  on  dangers 
of  travel  in  America,  303. 

Lynching,  Bourget's  description 
of,  179  n. 


Machine  rule  in  politics,  269-272. 

Mclver,  Dr.,  on  travelling  sales- 
men, 224-225. 

Mackay,  Alexander,  quoted,  62, 
200,  308. 

McMaster,  J.  B.,  cited,  12,  338; 
quoted,  306,  332. 

Magazines,  325-329. 

Maine,  a  bad  feature  of  prohibi- 
tion in,  98. 

Manners,  De  Tocqueville  on 
American,  175;  as  a  business 
asset,  191-192;  of  Americans 
travelling  abroad,  195-197;  ne- 
cessity for  establishing  a  stand- 
ard of,  203-204;  effect  of  spirit 
of  equality  on,  205-206. 

Mark  Twain,  "Daudet's  lack  of 
appreciation  of,  226. 

Marryat,  Captain,  quoted,  28,  72, 
249.  3341  on  military  titles  in 
America,  82 ;  on  Miss  Martineau 
in  Boston,  no;  on  American 
accent,  141  n. ;  good-fellowship 
of,  200;  on  American  humor, 
216;  cited,  321. 

Marrying  titles,  184. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  13-14,  15,  28, 
38 ;  on  aspersions  of  Americans 
by  one  another,  34-35;  on 
American  children,  49-50;  on 
American  snobbishness,  81 ;  and 
Boston  anti-abolitionists,  108- 
109;  tribute  to  works  of,  no;  on 
money  and  American  regard  for, 
144 ;  on  American  manners,  211 ; 
on  American  drollery,  216;  on 
steamboat  travelling,  303;  on 
health  and  speaking  voice  of 
women,  310. 

Mexico,  customs  and  manners  in, 
192-193. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  89,  167 ;  on  De 
Tocqueville's  "  Democracy,"  151. 

Millionnaires  in  America  and  in 
England,  146. 

Mills,  Professor,  on  English,  Ger- 
man, and  American  voice,  143. 


INDEX 


361 


Mississippi  River  travel,  303. 

Misspellings  in  French  book,  177. 

Mr.  Dooley,  on  classical  allusions, 
153 ;  French  lack  of  appreciation 
of,  226. 

Mr.  Weller,  observation  by,  30. 

Modesty,  11-12. 

Money,  manner  of  spending,  5; 
love  of,  77,  144-146. 

Monopoly,  struggle  against  privi- 
leged, 341-345- 

Monotony  in  America,  Bryce  on, 
238-239. 

Moore,  Thomas,  28 ;  motive  of,  in 
criticisms,  30-32. 

Moreau,  G.,  35-36. 

Morley,  John,  quoted,  125,  131- 
132. 

Morris,  William,  23. 

Morse,  historian,  quoted,  32-33. 

Mosley  Commission,  47  n.,  137  n. 

Muck-raking,  326. 

Muirhead,  James,  quoted,  85,  95, 
104 ;  mentioned,  128 ;  on  ice- 
water  habit,  136;  on  habit  of 
hurrying,  138 ;  on  American  and 
English  humor,  228-229. 

Miinsterberg,  Hugo,  38,  77,  128, 
129,  240;  quoted,  46,  97-98, 
254  ff. ;  on  American  journalists, 
143 ;  on  American  money-getting, 
145-146;  on  American  humor, 
229;  on  force  of  public  opinion 
in  federal  government,  249; 
analysis  of  works  and  criticisms 
by,  253-273. 

Murat,  Achille,  38,  105  n. 

Music,  progress  in,  312-313. 

Negroes,  DeTocqueville's  remarks 
on,  159-160;  surprise  of  French 
visitors  at  feeling  toward,  189; 
wages  now  earned  by,  305. 

Negro  question,  H.  G.  Wells's 
views  on,  281-283;  secondary 
position  of,  in  present-day  South, 
296-299. 

Nervousness,  45. 


Nevers,  Edmond  de,  on  the  typical 
American,  45-46;  on  American 
bragging,  64;  on  Americans' 
supercilious  exclusiveness,  81-82  ; 
on  Americans'  lack  of  humor, 
214. 

Newspaper  habit,  104,  118. 

Newspaper  men,  143, 167. 

Newspapers,  De  Tocqueville's 
criticism  of,  167-168;  German 
and  American,  contrasted,  257; 
two  formerly  thought  to  be  too 
many,  300 ;  present-day,  as  a  test 
of  progress,  324-329. 

"New  Worlds  for  Old,"  H.  G. 
Wells's,  292. 

New  York  City,  Jews  in,  41. 

New  York  State,  corruption  in, 
338. 

Niagara,  H.  G.  Wells  on,  21,  283. 

Observation-cars,  22. 

Olmsted,  F.  L.,  cited,  298. 

Opportunity,  America  as  a  field  for, 
312-315 ;  books  on,  313 ;  ques- 
tion of  approaching  end  of,  314- 

3iS. 
Optimism,  American,  84,  87,  294; 

of  Mr.  Bryce,  241,  336. 
Orang-outang,  draping  of,  11-12. 
Oratory,  spread-eagle,  60-61, 67-69. 
Orchestras,  American,  313. 
Orders  and  associations,  79. 
O'Rell,  Max.    See  Blouet. 
Ostrogorski,  240;    on  absence  of 

independence  in  legislators,  270- 

272. 
Overdoing,  American  genius  for, 

82-83. 
Overheating  of  houses,  21, 136-137. 

Pacific  coast  political  awakening, 

345- 

Page,  Thomas  Nelson,  17. 
Page,  Walter,  quoted,  298-299. 
Painting,  American,  188. 
Palgrave,  Eastern  traveller,  80  n. 
Parkinson,  105. 


362 


INDEX 


Parties,    political,    dangers    from, 

239-240,  269-273. 
Patent  medicines,  85-86. 
Patience  of  Americans,  92-95. 
Paulding,  J.  K..,  120. 
Pedigree  craze,  262-263. 
Pennsylvania  politics,  15,  330. 
Periodicals,  325-329. 
Perspective,  lack  of,  186-187. 
Philadelphia,  Harriet  Martineau  in, 

81. 

Philippine  problems,  113. 
Pickle-bottle  anecdote,  100. 
Pinchot,  Gifford,  163. 
Pirating  of  books,  35,  120. 
Pittsburg,  137,  162-163. 
Platenius,  German  traveller,  235. 
Platt,  Senator,  270. 
Polenz,  W.  von,  n  n.,  38,  128,  129. 
Poletika,  P.  I.,  quoted,  249,  308. 
Politicians,    American,    136,     138, 

259,  269-273,  285,  341. 
Politics,    corruption    in,    243    ff. ; 

Miinsterberg's  observations    on 

American,  259-260;  shaped  and 

colored  by  business  interests,  330 ; 

question  of  progress  as  shown 

in,  329-331 ;  rise  in  standard  of, 

334-346. 
President,  development  of  powers 

of,  247-248. 
Press,  the  American,  324-329.    See 

Newspapers. 

Prevost,  Marcel,  quoted,  207  n. 
Primogeniture,  discarding  of,  6-7, 

124;    predicted    dangers    from 

abolition  of,  317. 
Prisons,  brutal  conditions  in  early, 

331-333- 

Private  schools,  261-262,  266. 

Progress,  tests  of,  294  ff. ;  shown 
in  the  South,  295-299;  shown  in 
modes  of  travel,  299-300;  in 
wages  of  laborers  and  standards 
of  comfort,  304-307;  in  health, 
307-309;  in  the  speaking  voice, 
309-311;  in  manners,  311;  in 
science,  art,  and  letters,  312-313; 


opportunity  as  a  test  of,  313-315 ; 
various  signs  of,  315-321 ;  the 
press  as  a  test  of,  324-329;  in 
political  and  business  standards, 

329-34S- 

Proportion,  lack  of,  186-187. 
Public  opinion,  Bryce  on  the  force 

of,  247-248. 
Public  service  corporations,   evils 

connected  with,  244  ff. 
Public    utilities,    national    policy 

toward,  164-167,  339-340. 
Puck,  French  verdict  on,  215. 
Pueblo,  scenery  near,  134. 
Pullman    cars,    over-ornamenting 

of,  186. 
Punch,  an  American's  criticism  of, 

216. 
Punctuality  at  meals,  182-183. 

Quacks,  85-86,  89. 

Quarrymen,  wages  of  Italian,  304. 

Quay,  Senator,  271. 

Questioning,    American    habit  of, 

99-101. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  on  Jefferson   and 

his    followers,    33;    defence    of 

Captain  Preston  by,  58. 
Quinine,  an  excuse  for  Columbus, 

24. 

Race  prejudices,  159-160,  282-283. 

Race  problems,  278-283,  296-299. 

Railroad  interests,  mismanage- 
ment of,  245-246. 

Raynal,  Abbe,  24. 

Razor-strop  story,  219-220. 

Religious  disturbances  predicted, 
3I7-3I8. 

Religious  toleration,  319. 

Renan,  Ernst,  23;  cited,  160;  on 
manner,  203. 

Reporters,  143. 

Reverence,  lack  of,  in  children,  48, 
266-267. 

Review  of  Reviews,  327  n. 

Reviews,  British,  articles  against 
America  in,  118-119. 


INDEX 


363 


Rhode  Island  politics,  15,  330. 

Rhodes,  Cecil,  147,  269. 

Rhodes,  James  Ford,  17;  quoted, 
335  n.;  cited,  336  n. 

Richardson,  architecture  of,  23. 

Rochester,  N.Y.,  orders  and  asso- 
ciations in,  79. 

Rocking-chair  habit,   21,   22,   132, 

257,  307- 

Roosevelt,  President,  policy  of,  re- 
garding public  utilities,  165-166. 

Root,  Elihu,  317. 

Rousier,  Paul  de,  38,  80,  128,  180, 
181. 

Rowe,  Leo  S.,  cited,  42  n. 

Ruskin,  John,  23. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  31. 

Saint  Gaudens,  Augustus,  tributes 

to  work  of,  188,  312. 
St.  Louis  Exposition,  lessons  from, 

17-18. 

Saint-Saens,  quoted,  313. 
Sargent,  John  S.,  188. 
Scenery     in     America,     133-135  ; 

Bryce's  remarks  on,  238. 
Schleiden,        German        Minister, 

quoted,  265. 
School-children,  characteristics  of, 

266-267. 
Schools,  American,  84;  public  and 

private,  261-262 ;  defects  of,  265- 

267. 
School-teachers,     265  ;      speaking 

voices  of,  310. 
Schurz,  Carl,  56. 

Scott,  Michael,  on  Americans,  149. 
Scott,     Sir     Walter,     quoted     on 

Americans'  lack  of  breeding,  194. 
Scribner's  Magazine,  327  n. 
Sectional  hatreds,  320. 
Segur,  Count  de,  37. 
Self-consciousness,   American   na- 
tional, 101. 
Senators,  lack  of  independence  of, 

270-271 ;  as  future  oligarchs,  315. 
Sensitiveness,  79,  87-88,  99-115. 
Servant  question,  95,  319. 


Servants,  Mrs.  Trollope  and,  199. 

Sevigne,  Madame  de,  quotation 
from,  157. 

Sexes,  early  comments  on  separa- 
tion of,  9-11. 

Shaw,  Albert,  on  mismanagement 
of  American  railroad  interests, 
245-246. 

Silence,  so-called,  of  Americans, 
79, 136,  138-139. 

Sinclair,  Upton,  cited,  276. 

Skinner,  Mrs.,  speech  by,  54-55. 

Sky-scrapers,  22,  186. 

Slavery,  twitting  Americans  about, 
107-108;  De  Tocqueville's  fore- 
cast concerning,  159  ;  indus- 
trial condition  of  the  South 
under,  296-297 ;  South  not  happy 
under,  299  n. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  238. 

Smith,  Sydney,  35;  slurs  of,  con- 
cerning America,  118,  119,  126  ; 
wit  of,  220,  221. 

Smoking,  among  children,  27  n. ; 
statistical  clergyman's  deductions 
concerning,  51-52. 

Smyth,  105. 

Snobbishness,  80-81. 

Socialists,  views  of  visiting,  274- 

293- 

South,  progress  in  the,  295-299  ; 
early  hotels  in,  302. 

Southey,  Robert,  118. 

Sparks,  Jared,  i ;  and  De  Tocque- 
ville,  107,  120, 152,  320. 

Speech  of  Americans,  47.  See 
Voice. 

Spelling,  American,  3-4  ;  curiosi- 
ties in,  in  work  by  French  writer, 
177. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  92,  143. 

Spoils  system,  259,  286. 

Spoon  manipulation,  78. 

Squash,  new  origin  of,  78  n. 

Statue  of  Liberty,  22. 

Stead,  W.  T.,  enthusiasm  of,  to- 
wards America,  147-148;  on 
American  magazines,  327  n. 


364 


INDEX 


Steevens,  G.  W.,  quoted,  71  ; 
on  American  national  self-con- 
sciousness, 101 ;  on  ice-water 
habit,  135-136. 

Steffens,  Lincoln,  243. 

Sterling,  James,  quoted,  122-123, 
308. 

Stone,  Lucy,  317. 

Street-cars,  overcrowded,  96. 

Street  railways,  corruption  in  ma- 
nipulation of,  330. 

Strikes,  304, 305,  306. 

Success  Magazine,  327  n. 

Sunday  newspapers,  186. 

Taine,  "  Notes  on  England  "  by,  20. 
Talking  at  meals,  139-140. 
Talleyrand,  Prince,  23,  37. 
Tariff,  excesses  of,  340  n. 
Temper  of  children,  49. 
Tennyson,  Lord,    on   Americans, 

194. 
Thackeray,  on  American  children, 

•49 ;  English  love  of  money  set 

forth  by,  145. 
Theatre,  criticisms  of  American, 

176  n.,  186, 187. 
Thoreau,  Henry  D.,  16. 
Thoroughness,  lack  of,  90. 
Tipping,  excessive,  82 ;  benefits  of, 

141-142  ;  by  Americans  abroad, 

195- 

Titles,  military,  82. 

Tobacco,  use  of,  by  children,  27  n. 

Tocqueville,  Alexis  de,  15,  25,  38, 
80,  104,  106,  120,  124,  176,  318 ; 
quoted,  79,  97,  102,  158,  159,  162, 
167-168,  169-170,  171  n.,  175, 
201,  205  n. ;  on  Americans'  atti- 
tude toward  women,  50  n. ;  on 
American  bragging,  65-66;  on 
habit  of  hurrying,  137 ;  on  Amer- 
ican money-loving,  144;  sketch 
of  career  of,  151-152 ;  his  work, 
"  Democracy  in  America,"  152- 
153 ;  criticisms  and  observations 
in  his  work,  154-172 ;  on  Ameri- 
can manners,  193-194 ;  on  equal- 


ity and  its  effect  on  manners, 

208 ;  quality  of  good-will  in,  232 ; 

Mr.    Bryce    and,  236;    on    the 

President,  247-248. 
Touchiness,  trait  of,  103. 
Trade  as  idol  of  Americans,  286- 

288. 

Tramps,  313. 
Transportation,    effects    of    easy, 

170;  improvement  in  means  of, 

299-304. 
Travel,  progress  in  modes  of,  299- 

3°4- 

Treitschke,  H.  G.  von,  on  Ameri- 
cans' attitude  toward  woman,  50. 

Trevelyan,  Sir  G.  O.,  38,  128; 
quoted,  116-117,  I25 ;  cited,  320. 

Trollope,  Anthony,  on  American 
children,  48  n. ;  on  the  American 
squash,  78  n. ;  on  woman's 
dress,  207-208. 

Trollope,  Mrs.,  lo-n,  13,  28,  38, 
104;  object  in  writing,  29,  30; 
quoted,  67,  101-102;  on  Ameri- 
can ill-breeding,  198-199 ;  certain 
peculiarities  of,  199;  manners 
of  Americans  modified  by  criti- 
cisms by,  311. 

Tuberculosis,  341. 

Un- Americanism,  the  taunt  of,  55- 
59;  term  applied  to  forestry 
policy,  164. 

Van  Buren,  President,  speech  by, 
67. 

Varigny,  M.  C.  de,  work  by,  179  n. 

Vigoroux,  Professor,  80. 

Vituperation,  crusade  of,  120  ff. 

Voice,  the  American,  77,  83,  91- 
92,  136,  140-141 ;  improvement 
in,  309-311. 

Volney,  Comte  de,  37 ;  on  Ameri- 
cans' diet,  307. 

Voltaire,  on  the  English,  19,  289. 

Vote-buying,  15. 

Vulgarity,  American  possession  of, 
260.  See  Manners. 


INDEX 


Wages  of  laborers,  304-306. 
Warville,  Brissot  de,  37,  173-17$, 

318. 
Washington,  George,   pen-picture 

of,  by  Chastellux,  25;    Matthew 

Arnold's  view  of,  39-40. 
Webster,  Daniel,  quoted,  321. 
Webster's  dictionary,  an  American 

view  of,  72. 
Weld,  Isaac,  35 ;  on  American  lack 

of  manners,  194. 
Wellesley  College,  Harriet  Marti- 

neau's  statue  at,  no  n. 
Wells,  H.  G.,on  Niagara  Falls,  21- 

22,  283 ;  mentioned,  81, 135, 276 ; 

consideration  of  books  of  and 

criticisms  by,  277-293. 
Wilson,   Scotch  traveller,   quoted, 

302. 

Wilson,    Woodrow,    on    the    de- 
velopment   of    the     Presidency, 

248. 

Woman's  rights,  16,  207,  313. 
Woman's  rights  speech,  54-55. 


Women,  drinking  among,  36-37; 
deference  paid  to,  50;  America 
as  the  Paradise  for,  51-52;  real 
position  of,  according  to  French 
view,  53;  suggestions  to  women 
travelling  abroad,  about  brag- 
ging, etc.,  64  n. ;  absence  of  plain, 
according  to  French  visitors,  175 ; 
manners  of  English  and  of 
American,  209 ;  Miinsterberg  on 
the  American,  258 ;  Darwinian 
theory  as  applied  to,  258  n. ; 
ill-health  of  American,  307-308. 

Wordsworth,  William,  lines  on 
America  by,  118-119. 

World  power,  the  United  States  as 
a,  and  effect  of,  147  ff. 

World's  Work,  The,  325,  327  n. 

Wyse,  Francis,  29. 

Yankee  humor,  213-230. 
Yankees,    Chevalier    quoted    con- 
cerning, 79. 
Youth's  Companion,  The,  325, 327  n. 


The  Social  Unrest 

STUDIES  IN  LABOR  AND  SOCIALIST  MOVEMENTS 
By  JOHN  GRAHAM  BROOKS 

Cloth  i2tno  394.  pages  -fif.jo  net 

"  Mr.  Brooks  has  given  the  name  of  '  Social  Unrest '  to  his  profound  study, 
primarily  of  American  conditions,  but  incidentally  of  conditions  in  all  the  civil- 
ized countries.  The  book  is  not  easy  reading,  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a 
volume  which  would  better  repay  thorough  digestion  than  this.  It  expresses 
with  absolute  justice,  I  think,  the  conflicting  interests.  It  shows  the  fallacies  of 
many  socialistic  ideals.  It  admits  the  errors  of  the  unions.  It  understands  the 
prejudices  of  the  rich  and  the  nature  of  their  fear  when  present  arrangements 
are  threatened.  And  the  sole  purpose  of  the  author  is  to  state  the  truth,  with- 
out preference,  without  passion,  as  it  appears  to  one  who  has  seen  much  and 
who  cares  how  his  fellow-man  enjoys  and  suffers. 

"  Mr.  Brooks  does  not  guess.  He  has  been  in  the  mines,  in  the  factories, 
knowing  the  laborers,  knowing  the  employers,  through  twenty  years  of  investi- 
gation."—  Collier's  Weekly. 

"  The  author,  Mr.  John  Graham  Brooks,  takes  up  and  discusses  through 
nearly  four  hundred  pages  the  economic  significance  of  the  social  questions  of 
the  hour,  the  master  passions  at  work  among  us,  men  versus  machinery,  and 
the  solution  of  our  present  ills  in  a  better  concurrence  than  at  present  exists  — 
an  organization  whereby  every  advantage  of  cheaper  service  and  cheaper  prod- 
uct shall  go  direct  to  the  whole  body  of  the  people.  .  .  .  Nothing  upon  his 
subject  so  comprehensive  and  at  the  same  time  popular  in  treatment  as  this 
book  has  been  issued  in  our  country.  It  is  a  volume  with  live  knowledge  — 
not  only  for  workman  but  for  capitalist,  and  the  student  of  the  body  politic  — 
for  every  one  who  lives  —  and  who  does  not  ?  —  upon  the  product  of  labor."  — 
The  Outlook. 

Mr.  Bliss  Perry,  the  editor  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  says  of  it :  "A  fascinat- 
ing book  —  to  me  the  clearest,  sanest,  most  helpful  discussion  of  economic  and 
human  problems  I  have  read  for  years." 

Mr.  Edward  Gary,  in  The  New  York  Times'  Saturday  Review,  writes : 
"  Hardly  a  page  but  bears  evidence  of  his  patience,  industry,  acuteness,  and 
fair-mindedness.  .  .  .  We  wish  it  were  possible  that  his  book  could  be  very 
generally  read  on  both  sides.  Its  manifest  fairness  and  sympathy  as  regards 
theworkingmen  will  tend  to  the  accomplishment  of  this  result;  its  equal  candor 
and  intelligence  with  regard  to  the  employers  should  have  a  like  effect  with  them." 

"  The  work  is  one  of  fine  spirit,  fully  optimistic,  and  eminently  sane.  It  does 
not  deal  with  exploded  theories  where  facts  are  at  hand  to  give  them  the  lie, 
contrary  to  the  practice  of  the  doctrinaire  the  world  over.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  practically  the  first  modern  book  to  prove  that  all  theories,  whether  of  the 
individualist  or  the  socialist,  are  powerless  before  the  fact.  Leaning  rather  to 
the  point  of  view,  so  characteristically  American,  of  the  believer  in  no  more 
government  than  is  needful  to  secure  individual  freedom,  it  strongly  advocates 
trades  unionism  as  a  bulwark  against  the  legislative  interference  with  natural 
laws  which  is  being  invoked  with  even  more  frequency  by  the  employing  class 
than  by  the  laborer.  It  points  out  with  a  cogency  startling  at  times  the  supreme 
fact  that  it  is  only  when  the  laborer  is  denied  the  rights  he  is  able  to  secure 
by  organization  that  he  turns  to  politics  for  a  remedy." — Independent. 


PUBLISHED    BY 

THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

64-66  FIFTH  AVENUE,   NEW  YOBK 


Also  by  E.  V.  LUCAS 

A  Wanderer 
in  Holland 

With  twenty  illustrations  in  color  by  Herbert  Marshall,  besides  many 
reproductions  of  the  masterpieces  of  Dutch  painters. 

Cloth,  8vo,  $2.00  net 

"  It  is  not  very  easy  to  point  out  the  merits  which  make  this  volume 
immeasurably  superior  to  nine-tenths  of  the  books  of  travel  that  are 
offered  the  public  from  time  to  time.  Perhaps  it  is  to  be  traced  to  the 
fact  that  Mr.  Lucas  is  an  intellectual  loiterer,  rather  than  a  keen-eyed 
reporter,  eager  to  catch  a  train  for  the  next  stopping-place.  It  is  also 
to  be  found  partially  in  the  fact  that  the  author  is  so  much  in  love  with 
the  artistic  life  of  Holland." —  Globe- Democrat,  St.  Louis. 

"Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas  is  an  observant  and  sympathetic  traveller,  and 
has  given  us  here  one  of  the  best  handbooks  on  Holland  which  we 
have  read.  .  .  .  The  volume  is  illustrated  with  drawings  in  color  of 
scenes,  many  of  which  are  exquisite."  —  Philadelphia  Ledger. 

"  Altogether  it  is  the  most  delightful  rambling  account  of  Holland 
that  has  come  before  the  reader  in  a  long  time."  —  Brooklyn  Eagle. 

"  Next  to  travelling  oneself  is  to  have  a  book  of  this  sort,  written  by 
a  keenly  observant  man."  —  Chicago  Tribune. 

"  It  is  hard  to  imagine  a  pleasanter  book  of  its  kind. "  —  Courier- 
Journal,  Louisville. 

"  We  envy  the  reader  his  enjoyment  in  the  first  reading  of  this  en- 
dearing and  charming  volume  of  travel."  —  Boston  Herald. 

"  Mr.  Lucas  relishes  a  good  story,  true  or  legendary,  enlivens  his 
pages  with  many  anecdotes,  and  is  not  above  noticing  street  scenes, 
costumes,  foods,  etc.  The  soft-toned  colored  illustrations  by  Herbert 
Marshall  alone  are  worth  the  price  of  the  book. "  —  Congregationalist. 


Also  by  E.  V.  LUCAS 

A  Wanderer 
in  London 

With  sixteen  illustrations  in  color  by  Mr.  Nelson  Dawson,  and  thirty- 
six  reproductions  of  great  pictures. 

Cloth,  8vo,  $i.J5  net;  by  mail,  $1.87 

"  Mr.  Lucas  describes  London  in  a  style  that  is  always  entertaining, 
surprisingly  like  Andrew  Lang's,  full  of  unexpected  suggestions  and 
points  of  view,  so  that  one  who  knows  London  well  will  hereafter  look 
on  it  with  changed  eyes,  and  one  who  has  only  a  bowing  acquaintance 
will  feel  that  he  has  suddenly  become  intimate." —  The  Nation. 

"  Full  of  interest  and  sensitive  appreciation  of  the  most  fascinating 
city  in  the  world."  —  Bulletin,  San  Francisco. 

"  A  suggestive,  perhaps  an  inspiring  record  of  rambles  ...  a  book 
as  handsome  in  dress  as  it  is  entertaining  and  valuable."  —  Argonaut. 

"  One  can  hardly  hope  to  find  a  better  way  of  reviving  impressions 
and  seeing  things  in  a  new  setting  than  through  this  cheerful  and 
friendly  volume." —  Outlook. 

"  If  you  would  know  London  as  few  of  her  own  inhabitants  know 
her  —  if  you  would  read  one  of  the  best  books  of  the  current  season,  all 
that  is  necessary  is  a  copy  of  A  Wanderer  in  London."  —  Evening 
Post,  Chicago. 

"  In  short,  to  read  A  Wanderer  in  London  is  like  taking  long  tramps 
through  all  parts  of  the  city  with  a  companion  who  knows  all  the  in- 
teresting things  and  places  and  people  and  has  something  wise  or  gay 
or  genial  to  say  about  all  of  them." — New  York  Times'  Saturday  Review. 

"  Mr.  LucaF  is  a  competent  and  discriminating  guide  ;  his  interests 
are  many-sided.  He  is  connoiseur  and  raconteur  as  well  as  observer  and 
chronicler ;  and  he  knows  and  jots  down  just  the  sort  of  thing  one 
would  like  to  know  about  a  house,  or  a  park,  or  an  institution,  whether 
the  association  be  personal  or  historical  or  critical."  —  Herald. 


Races  and  Immigrants  in  America 

By  JOHN  R.    COMMONS 

UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN 

Cloth  ismo  242  pages  $1.25  net 

"  Some  of  the  most  valuable  portions  of  the  book  deal  with  economic  causes 
of  immigration.  It  is  shown  how  the  change  in  the  character  of  industry  has 
had  its  effects  in  the  changing  character  of  the  stream  of  immigration,  and  how 
alterations  in  the  laws  governing  property  in  labor  have  similar  results.  There 
is  also  an  excellent  discussion  of  the  relation  of  immigration  to  overproduction 
and  commercial  crises,  with  an  illustration  of  the  ultimate  results  of  stimulated 
immigration  on  government  drawn  from  Hawaiian  experience."  —  Chicago 
Record-  Herald. 

"  The  colonial  race  elements  are  considered,  brief  chapters  are  given  to  the 
negro  and  recent  immigrants,  and  industry,  labor,  city  life,  crime,  poverty,  and 
politics  are  treated  in  their  relation  to  the  maintenance  of  destruction  of  democ- 
racy. Professor  Commons'  purpose  appears  to  be  to  summarize  the  latest 
available  data  upon  his  subject  and  leave  conclusions  largely  to  the  reader.  In 
line  with  this  purpose  is  a  valuable  list  of  authorities  consulted.  It  is  certain 
that  the  book  will  be  of  great  service  to  ministers,  sociologists,  and  all  who  are 
concerned  in  the  problems  of  the  day."  —  Chicago  Interior. 

"  While  not  profound,  it  is  a  brief  and  concise  treatment  of  serious  public 
problems,  and  is  characterized  by  the  good  judgment  and  general  sanity  which 
are  evident  in  Professor  Commons'  works  in  general.  The  general  point  of 
view  and  conclusions  of  the  book  are  undoubtedly  sound,  and  it  will  serve  a 
useful  purpose  in  introducing  to  many  the  serious  study  of  our  racial  and 
immigration  problems.  To  one  who  can  spend  but  a  brief  time  in  reading 
along  the  line  of  these  problems,  but  who  wishes  a  general  survey  of  them  all, 
there  is  no  book  that  can  be  more  heartily  commended."  —  CHARLES  A.  ELL- 
WOOD  in  The  American  Journal  of  Sociology. 

"  This  is  an  extremely  valuable  study  of  the  greatest  problem  which  the 
United  States  has  to  solve  to-day;  perhaps  greater  than  that  of  all  the  ages 
that  have  preceded  it,  namely,  the  assimilation  of  large  numbers  of  dissimilar 
races  into  a  composite  race.  .  .  .  To-day  in  the  city  of  New  York  sixty-six  dif- 
ferent tongues  are  spoken.  A  century  hence  there  will  probably  be  only  one. 
And  throughout  the  country  there  are  communities  in  which  the  English  is  not 
the  dominant  language.  But  the  railroad,  the  post-office,  and  the  telegraph  as 
they  bind  them  in  interest  will  bind  them  in  speech.  It  is  in  this  view  that  the 
book  is  of  inestimable  value."  —  American  Historical  Magazine. 

"  Professor  Commons  has  long  been  a  diligent  and  penetrating  student  of 
industrial  conditions  in  this  country,  and  particularly  of  the  labor  movement. 
His  investigations  in  this  latter  field  have  brought  him  face  to  face  with  the  sit- 
uation that  confronts  the  arriving  immigrant,  and  he  has  been  led  to  inquire 
into  the  varying  abilities  of  different  races  to  make  use  of  the  opportunities 
presented  in  this  land  for  their  advancement.  .  .  .  We  do  not  recall  another 
book  of  its  size  that  presents  so  much  important  and  essential  information  on 
this  vital  topic."  —  Review  of  Reviews. 


PUBLISHED    BY 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YOBK 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


MOV  2  6  1956 
APR  1»  I*1 


• 


,||  APR  u  19?? 

RENEWAL 

RENEWAL    MAY  4 
MIN12 


Form  L9-17m-8,'55(B3339s4)444 


RENEWAL 
flL  JAN 


21972 


(1978 


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UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    001  239  237    9 


